


How to save the world, in just a few simple steps

by Aces_and_Roses



Series: Shaken, not stirred [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Electrocution, F/F, Guns, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kidnapping, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Slow Burn, brief descriptions of a dead body, brief descriptions of torture, hamid gets to be 007 guys, spy AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2020-08-10 04:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 41,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aces_and_Roses/pseuds/Aces_and_Roses
Summary: It started, as most things do, with an accident. Or, more specifically, Hamid being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or perhaps the right place at the right time, depending on your perspective). In either case, it happened, and most stories make more sense if one starts at the beginning.





	1. Chapter 1

Hamid held his phone between his ear and shoulder as he rushed down the (thankfully mostly deserted) street, wishing desperately that he hadn’t forgotten his headphones before leaving the house. “I’ll be fine, Saira, really. It’s only a ten-minute walk from my apartment. It’s better than most of the other jobs I could have gotten.” He adjusted the bundle of papers in his arms as one threatened to slip from his grasp.

“It’s just… You’re so far away. I worry.” Saira’s voice was muffled by the way the phone’s speaker wasn’t quite lined up with Hamid’s ear, but that did nothing to mask the concern in her voice (the same voice she used to use when he fell as a child, whenever she was watching him. The same voice she’d used after Liliana broke up with him and he’d called her in tears).

“I went to boarding school here. I know the city.” Hamid could hear the fond exasperation creeping into his voice as he spoke, turning left at the intersection, away from the few people that had been populating the main road onto a side street. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“I know. Just… call me if you need anything, okay?”

“I will.” Suddenly, he saw the window of the pub just down the road shatter outward as a stool went flying through it. “I… I’ve gotta go. I’m-” Hamid hesitated, considering whether he should say anything to Saira, before deciding that he didn’t want to worry her any more than she already was. It was probably fine. “I’m getting close to work. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” He shifted the bundles of papers in his hands until he could slide his phone into his back pocket, then continued forward toward the pub slowly, being as quiet as he could.

As he got closer, he began to hear noises coming from inside the building.

(It was fine, probably just an argument between some of the pub’s patrons. Some patrons that were there at… eight in the morning. It was fine.)

“... you can’t hide from me forever, Sasha. You know you can’t; I have eyes everywhere! So why don’t you just come quietly? I’ll make your death… less agonizing.”

Hamid came to an abrupt stop, a few feet shy of the pub’s door, upon hearing those words. That sounded… much more serious than a bar brawl.

(He shouldn’t get involved; he should just turn around, take another route to work. But… whoever Sasha was might need help, or something. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he walked away.)

He placed the papers he was holding on the ground near the wall of the building, then kept creeping forward. As he reached the door, he heard the voice again. “Sasha,” it crooned in a slight singsong, “where are you?” 

Hamid peeked around the corner of the door, observing the scene in front of him. The pub was a mess, broken glass strewn all over the floor, tables overturned, fragments of stools scattered everywhere. In the middle of all the chaos stood a man in a long leather coat, wearing a pair of (steampunk-esque) goggles, with a manic grin on his face. As Hamid watched, his gaze snapped suddenly over to a spot near the bar, close to the ground. “Ah, there you are, Sasha.” He started to stalk closer to the spot, and Hamid was startled to see a flicker of something like a shadow in the air there. Nothing more than that, certainly nothing substantial enough to be a person, but a flicker nonetheless. The man seemed convinced that it was the Sasha he was looking for anyway.

Hamid was at a loss for what to do; he felt like he should do something to help, but he couldn’t figure out what. He glanced left and right, scanning the ground for anything that might give him an idea, when he spotted a broken table leg well within reach. He hesitated just long enough to make sure that the man in the pub wouldn’t look in his direction, then leaned out from his hiding spot to snatch it up.

“I see you, Sasha. There’s no more hiding from me,” crowed the man, moving closer to the flicker by the bar with every second. Hamid took a deep breath, then threw the table leg, sending it flying across the room until it collided with a (miraculously) unbroken bottle sitting on a table, on the opposite side of the man from the flicker. Hamid ducked out of view as the bottle crashed to the floor, shattering, and the man whipped around to stare at it. “What the- Oh, Sasha, did you bring a friend? That seems rather rude, doesn’t it? Not introducing me.” 

Hamid stayed with his back pressed to the wall by the door, trying to control his breathing, desperately hoping that the man wouldn’t think to look his way, that he wouldn’t see him. He could hear him moving around inside the pub, broken tables and stools scraping along the floor, broken glass crunching underfoot. The sounds seemed like they were getting further away, moving toward the far side of the building rather than toward him.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t nearly scream when a hand came down on his shoulder. Probably would have done, if it weren’t for the fact that another hand came up to cover his mouth at the same time. As it was, he didn’t scream, even when he snapped his eyes to where it felt like a hand was clamped on his shoulder and saw absolutely nothing there.

Then, a flicker, directly in front of him, the same one from before. He heard a voice, like someone whispering into his ear even though there appeared to be no one there (it was really quite jarring, honestly). “If I take my hand off, you’re not going to scream, right?” Hamid nodded, and the hand drew back immediately. He didn’t scream. “Good. You’re the one that broke the bottle?” He nodded again, and the person - probably Sasha - made an appreciative noise. “Thanks for that, then. What’s your name?”

“Uh, Hamid,” he whispered. “Yours?”

She took a moment before responding, and Hamid couldn’t help but wonder if she was coming up with a name off the top of her head (he honestly wouldn’t blame her). “Sasha. But you probably heard that. D’ya think you can help me a little more, Hamid?”

“Y-yeah, sure. What do you need from me?”

Sasha pressed a pile of small, smooth objects into his hand as she spoke. “I need you to keep him distracted, just the way you were doing. Just throw one of these if he ever seems like he’s spotted me. I’d change position every few throws, though. So he can’t figure out where they’re coming from.”

Hamid took a deep breath, then nodded again. “I can do that.” Sasha hummed quietly and he (just barely) heard her move away, back into the pub. Looking down at his hand, he saw that she’d given him a handful of small disks shaped like coins, but with none of the symbols or imagery you’d expect on them.

He peeked around the doorframe, tracking the flicker that was Sasha as she moved silently across the room. He couldn’t tell exactly what she was headed for, or what she was planning to do once he finally got there, but he supposed that it didn’t matter. He just needed to keep the man in the pub distracted.

Hamid kept an eye on Sasha’s whereabouts as she moved throughout the room for the next few minutes, periodically chucking a disk into the room (to his surprise, the moment they contacted the floor they let out a noise not unlike someone tripping, then dissolved into nothing). He changed his position every few minutes, just like Sasha had said to (though it didn’t seem like the man had any idea that the noises the disks made were anything other than Sasha stumbling over some piece of debris or other).

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the man called in the same sing-song from earlier, his body turned to face the place where Hamid had thrown the most recent disk, while the flicker-that-was-Sasha moved silently past him behind his back. He seemed to have completely forgotten his earlier suspicion that Sasha had brought backup, instead solely focused on the prospect of catching her.

Or so he thought. At least until, about twelve minutes after Sasha initially asked for his help, he tossed a disk into the pub only for the man’s gaze to whip toward where Hamid was hidden rather than the noise. He tried to duck back into cover before the man could see him, but it was too late; the man held out one hand, and an arc of electricity lanced from his index finger over to Hamid. Hamid felt his entire body stiffen as it hit him, every muscle in his body spasming as he fell sideways, away from the partially broken table he’d been crouched behind.

“Ah, there you are.” The man stalked toward him, lowering his hand, though the electricity (which Hamid now realized was probably actually some kind of taser) continued to arc between it and Hamid. With his other hand he drew a knife from his belt, adjusting his grip on the handle as he moved to stand over Hamid. “You must be Sasha’s little friend. What an annoyance you are.” He crouched down, positioning the tip of the knife over Hamid’s right eye as Hamid continued to shake uncontrollably. Behind him, Hamid thought he might have seen a flicker, so brief he almost missed it, and he hoped more than anything that it was really Sasha, and not some trick his eyes were playing on him. “I think I’ll have some fun with you. Maybe that will convince Sasha to-”

He was cut off as his goggles were ripped off his head and thrown across the room as a thin wire was wrapped tight around his neck. He clawed at his throat, mouth working as he tried to draw in a breath that wouldn’t come. 

“Shut up, Barrett,” came Sasha’s voice as the flicker that had been behind him finally solidified into the shape of a person; a woman with pale skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. She held the wire taut against the man’s - Barrett’s - struggling, until he finally stopped moving. Sasha shifted his weight until he was lying on the floor as the taser finally shut off and Hamid stopped shaking, panting for breath.

Sasha flipped Barrett’s limp body over, taking a pair of handcuffs off her belt and restraining him, patting him down as she did so (removing a few gadgets that Hamid couldn’t identify in the process). Then, she turned to face Hamid, still lying on the floor, and offered him a hand. He took it and let her pull him up. “You alright there?”

“I- I think so. Or… I will be alright, at least. That taser was really something.”

Sasha looked him up and down, slowly, like she was sizing him up. “You did good, really good… What’s your name again?”

“Hamid.”

“Full name?”

Hamid hesitated (did he really want to give this random woman who’d just choked a man to unconsciousness his full name), but… Barrett had seemed like he was a bad guy. And she was still staring at him, her expression perfectly neutral, not a hint of malice in it. “Hamid Saleh Haroun al Tahan.”

She nodded, seemingly content with that. “Alright then, Hamid. We’ll be in touch.” With that, she turned and moved toward the back of the building, dragging Barrett’s limp body behind her. Hamid almost called after her to ask what she meant by that, but decided not to. Given the expression he saw on her face in the split second before she turned to leave, he wasn’t sure she would react to any sort of interruption to her work well.

He supposed it didn’t really matter anyway. Whatever was going to happen would happen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf’s story was a little different, as these things tended to be when one was very purposefully recruited, rather than stumbled upon entirely by accident. Or, if you were aiming to be as accurate as possible regarding the details of his beginnings, not so much recruited, as born into it.

“Come on, Zolf,” Feryn called from his place at the top of the cliff. “You’re almost there! Just a little further!”

Zolf panted, looking up at his brother, only a few feet above him. He adjusted his feet on the rock below, pushing himself upward just far enough to grab onto an outcropping and pull himself up to it. His arms were shaking uncontrollably, his hands sore and tired, but he wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. He had to get there, had to prove that he could.

Just a few minutes later he pulled himself up onto the top of the cliff, ignoring the hand Feryn offered him. He instead sat down on the edge, feet dangling over as he got his breath back. Feryn clapped him on the shoulder, hand firm and solid. “That was good, Zolf. Keep going like this and you’ll be ready in no time.”

“If you’re not careful, I’ll get recruited before you are.”

Feryn let out a startled laugh, squeezing Zolf’s shoulder. “Sure, kid.”

* * *

Zolf took a deep breath, adjusting his stance. To his right he heard the sound of Feryn taking a shot, but he didn’t let it distract him. Instead, he focused on the technique that had been drilled into him for years; breathe in, breathe out, slow and steady, pull the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot echoed through the range, so loud it nearly drowned out the sound of Feryn’s cheer. He flipped the safety back onto the pistol, backing out of the stall, then removed his safety gear.

“That was fantastic, Zolf! Perfect shot!” He gently took the gun from Zolf’s grip, placing it on the table to the side before wrapping him in a tight hug. “You’re a natural!”

Zolf shrugged out of his brother’s grasp, unable to meet his eyes as heat rose to his face at the praise. “So you’ve said. Every time we’ve come to the range.”

Feryn laughed, ruffling Zolf’s hair fondly. “And it’s always been true.”

* * *

Zolf grunted as Feryn landed a punch to his stomach. “Come on, Zolf, that was too easy.” Feryn swung again, aiming for Zolf’s head that time, but he ducked out of the way. The attempt threw Feryn off balance and Zolf took advantage, getting a hold of his arm and using it to throw him to the floor.

“Are you sure about that?” Zolf dropped to pin Feryn down with his knee. “Too easy?”

Feryn grinned up at him, trying to shift to flip Zolf off, but unable to find any leverage to work with. “What can I say, I’m getting slow.” 

“Hardly,” Zolf said, laughing brightly as he stood back up. He offered Feryn his hand, pulling him back to his feet when he accepted it. “I’m just better.”

Feryn’s grin softened slightly as he looked at Zolf. “You really are.”

* * *

“He really didn’t stand a chance, did he?” Zolf said, nudging the unconscious man with the tip of his boot.

Glancing up, he saw Feryn grinning at him as he reloaded his pistol. “Not against the two of us, he didn’t.”

Zolf returned the grin before stooping down to secure the man’s wrists, patting him down quickly to find anything he could plausibly use against them (and coming up with nothing). “It’s pretty unfair to them, isn’t it?”

Suddenly there was a noise from one of the room’s doors, the sound of someone pounding on the surface with something heavy and solid, trying to break it down. Zolf, now finished checking the unconscious man over, straightened up, checking over his gun as he did so. 

“So,” said Feryn conversationally as he moved to stand to one side of the door, “ready for round two?”

“Always.”

* * *

Zolf rubbed at the place where the prosthetic joined his leg as he sat on the uncomfortable chair in the director’s waiting room, willing the ever-present ache to go away. His calf hurt, which didn’t make any sense, since that leg didn’t have a calf anymore, but no amount of logic seemed to make the pain stop. There didn’t seem to be any magic number of times to roll up his pants leg to check over the prosthetic that would make it go away. He honestly wasn’t sure it ever would.

A constant reminder, he supposed, of everything that had happened. Of why he was there.

(Of who wasn’t.)

A young man exited the director’s office, leaving the door open behind him. He heard her call, “Come in, Zolf.” So he did. He entered the office, closing the door behind himself, and limped over to sit in the chair across the desk from the director.

Zolf found the director just as imposing as the last time he met her; harsh eyes, and a certain set to her mouth that said the only way you would get what you wanted was if you were lucky enough that it was what she wanted too.

“Is your prosthetic still bothering you?” she asked, her tone surprisingly gentle given her stern expression. “I’m sure we could get the technicians to take another look, give it a tune-up.”

Zolf shook his head. “It doesn’t need fixing, director. It’s not the prosthetic. Phantom limb syndrome, the docs said. Nothing to be done.” He paused, letting his gaze drift from the director to one of the paintings on the wall behind her (an ugly one, just abstract shapes in various shades of brown). “That’s not why I’m here.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk as she stared Zolf down. “Why are you here then, agent?”

Zolf swallowed, then closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath before he opened them again. “I’m here to request a transfer.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he continued before she got the chance. “Not to a different quadrant. Not to a different continent. I’m requesting a transfer out of the field.”

“Agent- Zolf… I know the last six months have been hard on you.” She spoke gently, her tone as soothing as she could make it. “If you need more time, then I’ll happily approve that for you. But there’s no need to make such a hasty decision.”

“It’s not hasty.” He tore his eyes away from the painting to look at her directly. “I’ve been thinking about it for months. I- I can’t be in the field anymore. I don’t… It would be dangerous. For me, and for anybody working with me. So either you approve the transfer or- or I’ll have to leave. For good.”

“Zolf…”

“Don’t!” he snapped, “Don’t you dare! I know what I need, and I’ve made my choice. It’s time for you to make yours.”

The director stared at him for a long time, examining him with such intensity that he felt like he was under a microscope, before finally straightening up. “Fine,” she said, typing away at her keyboard for a few moments before turning back to Zolf. “It’s done. You’re out of the field.”

Zolf levered himself out of his chair, resisting the urge to rub at the edge of the prosthetic again. “Thank you, director.”

She simply nodded, and Zolf limped out of the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s rare for a person’s life to change so suddenly and drastically as Hamid’s was about to in the following days. Or perhaps it’s not, and our perception is skewed by the clear danger resultant from precisely how Hamid’s life was going to change, whereas drastic alterations in most people’s lives don’t involve danger in the least.

They took three days to call. During that time Hamid had felt his heart jump in his chest every time his phone rang and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed when the caller ID revealed that it was just another call from Saira or his parents. He honestly wasn’t sure what he was expecting to come from Sasha’s vague promise that they’d be in touch, but something in him was… excited. There was no other word for it. Though given the mind-numbing drudgery of his current job, he didn’t think anyone could blame him.

The call came on the third morning as he was getting ready for work, half-dressed and unprepared. When he looked at the screen, nothing came up, no caller ID, not even an ‘Unknown Number’. The screen was blank, except for the answer button, and he just knew that it was the call he’d been waiting for. He answered it, mumbling an embarrassingly shaky hello.

“This is Hamid Saleh Haroun al Tahan, correct?” came the bland tones of someone who sounded like they’d rather be doing literally anything else from the other end of the line.

“Y-yeah. That’s me.”

“Do you recall encountering a woman named Sasha three days ago?”

“Yes.” (How could he possibly forget?)

“Well then, Hamid, I’m calling to offer you a job.”

“I…” He hesitated. He knew he shouldn’t even bother asking, shouldn’t entertain the idea that he was going to take whatever job was being offered to him even for a second, especially if it was as dangerous as it seemed when he helped Sasha. But still… A little curiosity never hurt, did it? “What kind of job?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified.”

“How do you expect me to accept a job I know nothing about?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a few moments before the voice continued. “You must understand, Hamid, that this is highly unusual.”

“Unusual?”

The voice gave a quiet hum down the line. “We don’t typically… approach people like this.” A pause. “There will be a car outside your apartment in fifteen minutes. It will wait there for precisely five minutes. If you want the job, get in. If not, feel free to ignore it, and continue on with your day. Do you understand?”

“I do.” The call ended with a click. Hamid pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the dark screen for a few moments before tucking it into his pocket.

(He wasn’t seriously considering the offer, was he? Something dangerous, and apparently so clandestine that he couldn’t know anything about it beforehand. He couldn’t really be that desperate for a change in his routine that he would do that.)

(Who was he kidding?)

Fifteen minutes later found Hamid getting into the back seat of a black sedan with tinted windows.

(Of course he was.)

* * *

If someone had told Hamid when he woke up that morning that by noon he would be sitting in a well-appointed office, looking across a mahogany desk at the most intimidating woman he had ever seen in his life, apparently interviewing to become some sort of secret agent, he never would have believed them. Nevertheless, that was exactly where he found himself at that day, at exactly 12:02pm. Not that he knew that, of course, as his phone, as well as any other technology he had on his person, had been confiscated the moment he’d entered the black sedan outside his apartment.

“Before you decide whether you’ll take this job, Mr. al Tahan, I do believe that there are some things you should know. Firstly, if you do accept, you can never speak to or see your family again. Understood?”

“I can’t just- just disappear, though. They’ll look for me. Wouldn’t that draw too much attention?”

The woman looked pleased as Hamid spoke, the corners of her mouth twitching like she was fighting down a smile. “Most likely, we’ll fake your death.”

Hamid nodded, swallowing back the lump that formed in his throat at the thought. “Alright, I… Guess that makes sense. What else?”

“If you accept, this job is permanent. No backing out.”

Hamid nodded again (that was the sort of thing he would have made a joke about, if it weren’t for how frightening he found this woman - the director, as she had introduced herself. A permanent job, no chance of being fired, never having to go job hunting again, the ideal situation).

“Our work has a high mortality rate. It’s entirely likely that you won’t live to see retirement.”

“How high?” He didn’t want to know, not really, but he knew he should ask. Make the most informed decision possible (his parents would be proud).

“The mortality rate for field agents is approximately fifty percent.”

“O-okay… That’s…” He took a deep breath, steadying himself, before continuing. “The driver, he said that the work done here saves the world. Is that true?”

The director’s mouth twitched again, and her voice sounded almost… gentle when she spoke. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.”

(Did he really want to do this? Give up everything he’d ever known, give up his family, friends, his life on the off chance he’d survive long enough to actually do some good?)

“I’ll do it.”

* * *

The first time Hamid saw Sasha after accepting the job, he was just leaving the shooting range. He had trouble hearing her at first, his ears still ringing with the sound of gunshots, even with the hearing protection he’d been wearing.

“... heard that you’d accepted the job. Didn’t exactly believe it though. You been doing good, then, have you?” She didn’t wait for an answer before turning around, gesturing for Hamid to follow her.

“Y-yeah, I suppose. It’s been good.” He scrambled to catch up as she marched purposefully away, using her longer legs to their fullest potential (sometimes Hamid really hated being short. This was one of those times). “The training’s been hard, but I, uh, kind of expected that.”

Sasha didn’t respond to that, simply kept leading Hamid down hallways and through rooms he didn’t yet recognize. After about a minute and a half of that, she finally stopped outside a door. “There’s someone you should meet,” she said, brusque as ever. “Through here.” She gestured to the door, moving out of the way so he could get past her and push it open.

The room was on the small side, and relatively dark, with most of the light coming from the bank of monitors on the far wall. Each monitor displayed what looked like a security feed; a few even showed areas of the building that he recognized, while others looked like they were outside, or in a different building entirely. In front of the screens were two people, though it was hard for Hamid to discern anything about them - beyond the fact that one was tall and broad, while the other was significantly shorter - given the way the screens back-lit them. Behind him, Sasha brushed her hand against a wall panel, and the room lit up, both of the other individuals turning around to face them as they realized they weren’t alone.

“Sasha!” called the tall one excitedly, standing up from her chair. “I didn’t expect to see you today. How’s your leg feeling?”

Sasha shifted from foot to foot, looking… not uncomfortable, but something similar (embarrassed, maybe? Hamid couldn’t really tell. Sasha was difficult to read). “It’s fine. It’ll be better in no time. That’s not why I’m here.” She gestured to Hamid. “Figured some introductions needed to be made.”

Azu looked over to Hamid. “Ah, you must be the new field agent!”

“Hamid,” he said, offering his hand for her to shake, which she did quite vigorously.

“It is so wonderful to meet you, Hamid. I am Azu. I’m Sasha’s coordinator.” She beamed at him, her smile so bright that there was nothing for Hamid to do but smile in return.

“Azu’s not the person I actually brought you here to meet though,” Sasha said, leaning casually against the wall near the door. As if he’d been waiting for his cue, the shorter man made his way around Azu, coming to a stop in front of Hamid. “Hamid, that’s Zolf. I have it on good authority that he’s gonna be your coordinator once you’re finished training.”

Calling Zolf short wasn’t exactly fair, in hindsight. He was a fair bit shorter than Azu, but that could be said about nearly anyone, given Azu’s height. Now that he was standing closer, Hamid could tell that he was taller than him by at least a few inches.

“Oh! Well, then, nice to meet you, Zolf,” Hamid said brightly, offering Zolf his hand to shake. Zolf’s expression didn’t change, remaining in a tight-lipped frown. “I, uh, look forward to working with you.”

“Yeah,” Zolf practically grunted at him, his voice gruff. Under his breath, Hamid heard him mutter, “Now, where have I heard that before?” Hamid let his hand fall as it became clear that Zolf wasn’t going to take it.

“Alright, we better get going,” Sasha piped up. “You aren’t, uh, exactly supposed to be back here. Or to know Zolf yet, so don’t- don’t mention it to anyone, okay?”

Hamid nodded, then followed Sasha out the same door they entered through, calling “Bye, Azu. Bye, Zolf,” over his shoulder.

As they left, Hamid could swear he heard Azu say “You don’t know that he’ll be the same-”, only to be cut off by the sound of the door closing.

Hamid looked to Sasha, about to ask what he’d done to make Zolf dislike him so much, but she just shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, he’s like that with most people. He’ll get used to you.”

Hamid wasn’t sure he believed her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf was rapidly finding that his new agent was much too reckless for his liking, not that he could do much of anything to change it. He just needed to stay calm, keep a level head, and most importantly, keep Hamid safe. Most would think that would be a simple enough task. Most have not met Hamid Saleh Haroun al Tahan.

“Okay,” Zolf said, leaning forward to squint at the screen, like that would make the low-resolution image any better. “The next door on your right should lead to the garage. If you hug the wall to your left, there should be a door about 10 feet down. Try to keep low; the feed I’m getting from these cameras leaves… a lot to be desired.”

He watched through the cameras as Hamid crept along the wall, dutifully staying low, peering around the edges of each car as he passed it (though whether they could rightfully be referred to as cars was debatable. Tanks was probably a more appropriate descriptor, but that wasn’t really important at the moment). “Who the hell needs this many cars? It’s ridiculous.”

Zolf stifled a chuckle at Hamid’s affronted tone, coming clear as a bell through Zolf’s headset (albeit slightly tinny). “These guys, apparently.” He switched his attention to the feed in the server room as Hamid approached the correct door. “Through the door’s all clear. Just get in, get the data, get out. Easy.”

(He should have known. He should have known better than to say it would be easy. He should have been suspicious from the moment Hamid entered the building to find no guards whatsoever on the most straightforward path to the server room. He should have known.)

Hamid was just finishing up downloading the correct files when Zolf spotted the first guard. He wasn’t even worried about it; this was exactly what Hamid had been training all those months to do. He could easily take down one guard without any trouble. But then, just as he was about to warn Hamid that there was someone coming his way, he spotted another. And another. And another. A steady stream of heavily armed guards entering the garage and taking up position, guns trained on the server room door.

“Shit.”

Hamid froze, having just pulled the USB out of the server bank. “What is it?”

“It’s an ambush. I’m counting fifteen- no, twenty guards taking up positions in the garage.” Zolf ran a hand through his hair, huffing out a breath as he did so. “We’re- I’m gonna get you out of this, just… Just give me a minute.”

He watched as Hamid positioned himself just to the right of the door (the only door out of the server room, of course. Zolf should have known, this entire mission had practically screamed ambush, he should have known, he should have known), then turned his attention to the other feeds from throughout the building. What he saw was… not encouraging; more security, coming from all corners of the facility. Even if Hamid managed to get out of the garage, none of the nearby hallways were clear. There was no way out (and it was his fault, his fault again).

“Zolf?” Hamid’s voice cut through the panicked spiral of Zolf’s thoughts, and he snapped his eyes back to the server room feed. Hamid was still there, gun drawn, back to the wall next to the door. “Have you got anything?”

Zolf swallowed, trying to steady his voice before he responded. “I- It’s not looking good, if I’m being honest here. More security closing on your location, and none of the nearby hallways are clear. I- I don’t...” Hamid had to be able to hear the panic in his tone, he had to, it was plain and clear but he couldn’t stop it.

(Not again, not again, please not again. He couldn’t watch it happen again.)

“I might have an idea,” Hamid says, and Zolf shakes his head sharply, as though that could somehow expel the panic-fueled thoughts racing through him. “That room out there is a garage, right? So there must be an outside door.”

Zolf checked the feed from the garage. “Uh, yes, directly to your left as you leave the room. It’s reinforced, though. I can see a panel to open it, but I don’t think you could make it there without…” he trailed off, unable to give voice to the thought he’d been avoiding since he saw the guards gathering in the garage.

(... without getting killed;… without getting shot and captured;… without dying there, because of Zolf, the second person who would die because of him.)

“Are any of the cars near the door?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Then I have a plan.”

“Hamid, what-” Before Zolf could say any more, Hamid opened the door, sprinting from the server room to the nearest car and taking cover behind it. “What the hell are you doing?”

Hamid didn’t respond, or if he did Zolf couldn’t hear it over the sound of gunfire echoing through his headset. He only popped out of cover long enough to fire a few shots at the guards, then sprinted to the next car - closer to the door.

“Hamid?”

He kept going, dodging from car to car, narrowly avoiding getting shot more than once (and Zolf could do nothing, he was powerless, again), all the while moving closer to the outer door, until he was crouched behind the second closest car to it. It wasn’t until he took aim at the fuel tank of the next car that Zolf figured out what he was planning to do.

“Hamid, no, you’re too-” close, was what he wanted to say, what he would have said if he hadn’t been cut off by Hamid firing once, twice, three times, and then the image on the screen whiting out as the explosion engulfed the camera. “No! No, no, no, Hamid!” The picture didn’t come back, just cut to static; the heat probably destroyed it (probably destroyed him too, a traitorous voice in his head whispered. Just like Feryn).

(Just like Feryn.)

Suddenly, static in his ears, and then-

“Zolf? Zolf, do you read me?” Garbled and difficult to understand, but unmistakably Hamid. A miraculously not dead, not blown to pieces Hamid.

“I- I read you, Hamid. I’ve got no visuals, where are you?” Zolf despised how hoarse his voice sounded, his all-encompassing terror from the moments before painfully evident in it.

“I’m out of the building, no pursuit. I think the explosion took out most of the guards in the garage. Making my way back to the rendezvous now.”

(He’d made it out, he’d survived.)

(Zolf was going to kill him.)

* * *

“What the hell were you thinking!?” Zolf shouted, clenching his hands into fists at his sides, staring Hamid down. “That plan was- it was ridiculously dangerous, practically suicidal!”

“At least I did something! If I’d listened to you, I would’ve died in that server room! Or worse, I would have been captured!” Hamid was practically shaking with fury as he shouted back at Zolf, giving every bit as good as he got.

“I would have- I was coming up with a plan! A plan that wouldn’t get you killed!”

“No, you weren’t, you were panicking! If I’d waited for you to come up with something, they would have broken down the door!” Hamid stalked closer, jabbed a finger into Zolf’s chest. “My plan worked! My plan got me and the data out of there!”

Zolf swatted Hamid’s hand away (with a little more force than was strictly necessary). “If all you’re going to do is try to get yourself killed, you can find another goddamn coordinator! I won’t be part of it!”

“Fine!” came Hamid’s retort. “Maybe I will!”

“Fine!”

Hamid turned and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Zolf deflated, practically falling backwards into his chair, burying his face in his hands.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered, muffled. “Not again.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamid may not understand exactly why Zolf was mad at him, but damned if he was going to let that stop him from complaining about it. Though that would be a lot more enjoyable if the friend he complained to wasn’t so annoyingly level-headed.

“And then,” Hamid said indignantly, gesticulating wildly, “he had the gall to accuse me of trying to get myself killed! As if his freezing up wouldn’t have done the exact same thing!”

Sasha shook her head slightly, narrowing her eyes at Hamid as he mumbled insults under his breath. “Can you really blame him, though? He was worried; what you did was really dangerous, it could have easily killed you.”

“At least I’d have died _doing_ something! Not just sitting there, waiting for them to break down the door and kill me.” Hamid made a valiant effort to stay annoyed at Zolf in the face of Sasha’s unimpressed look, but he could feel himself wavering (what she was saying made sense; of course Zolf had been worried, Hamid was his responsibility, and he had taken a huge risk). “I just… Ugh! It’s so frustrating.”

“I get it, Hamid, trust me. But it’s kind of his job to worry about you. And Zolf’s been known to be a bit… overprotective… of his agents. He knows his stuff, though. He’s one of the best.”

Hamid crossed his arms, huffing out a breath. “If he’s such an expert, then why doesn’t he just go into the field himself?”

Sasha pressed her lips into a thin line, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. “He, uh… He did. He used to. Was really good, too. But he doesn’t anymore.”

Hamid’s eyes widened in shock. “He- he was? Why is he a coordinator now if he was so good?” Sasha shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck. “Oh, come on, I know you know. What happened?”

“It’s not really my story to tell, mate. Just trust me when I say it wasn’t… He has his reasons for not doing field work anymore. Good ones.” She stood up from her chair, moving toward the door. “I’ve gotta go. I’m meeting Azu in a couple minutes to discuss our next operation.” She opened the door, then paused, turning back to him for a moment. “I think some of the records aren’t completely classified. If you really want to know. Just… don’t tell him I told you, alright?” With that, she left the room.

(Hamid knew he shouldn’t go searching for those records; whatever reasons Zolf had for not doing field work were his own, and Hamid had no right to pry. But… if it could help them work together better, make them more of a unit… wasn’t that worth a try, at the very least?)

* * *

Sasha was right; the records weren’t sealed. That wasn’t to say that they revealed anything particularly meaningful, however. Each and every file that he could access with the name Zolf Smith was heavily redacted, to the point of being almost entirely unreadable. In other words, completely useless to him.

In one file, the only unredacted words were ‘Agent Zolf Smith’, and then a few lines later, ‘exemplary scores,’ which went some way to supporting Sasha’s insistence that Zolf had been a particularly good field agent, but didn’t really give him anything else.

In another, the unredacted sections essentially came down to, ‘Agent Smith lost use of his left leg’, then ‘the issue has been resolved’. Hamid had never noticed Zolf limping or anything, so he reasoned that they must have been able to fix it. That still didn’t really help him with what he was trying to accomplish.

Throughout many of the records, however, he found mention of another name that he had never heard before. Feryn Smith. They were mentioned in conjunction too often for the names to be a coincidence, which led Hamid to believe that they were related somehow, and given that they seemed to have worked closely together for most of their careers (until recently, that was) it was most likely that they were brothers. Had been brothers.

Feryn Smith was dead.

He had been for about five years, apparently, though Hamid couldn’t piece together much beyond that (there just wasn’t enough information that he could access). Exactly five years prior to the operation Zolf and Hamid had been running, Feryn Smith had died in the field and, if the conclusions he was drawing from his (admittedly limited) data were accurate, Zolf had been there to see it.

His behaviour made a lot more sense, in hindsight. Zolf had seemed on edge throughout their preparations, insisting on going over the mission briefing once, twice, three times, and even then seeming unsatisfied with Hamid’s familiarity with it. He’d been checking and re-checking all the floor-plans they’d been able to secure for the facility, had come up with escape route after escape route, backup plan after backup plan. Hell, Hamid had even caught him awake in the middle of the night, the day before the operation, in the little cabin they set up in a few miles away, twisting the ring he always wore around his finger again and again, staring absently at the plans in front of him.

It all made a lot more sense, now that Hamid had context. He felt kind of bad for yelling at Zolf.

He should have noticed the signs. He should have done something; should have seen if they could have postponed it, or at least do _something_ to make Zolf feel less anxious about it. But he hadn’t, and they’d both suffered because of it. There was nothing to be done about it now, except apologize.

He pulled out his communicator, opening his messages, briefly eyeing the last message he’d gotten from Zolf (a terse _‘Meeting Room 7C. 10 minutes’_) before beginning to type.

_ <strike>‘Zolf, I’m sorry about what I did on the last mission’</strike> _ <strike></strike>

_ <strike>‘I apologize for what I said when I returned from our last operation’</strike> _ <strike></strike>

_ <strike>‘Zolf, while I don’t appreciate the implications your comments during our last conversation had about my skills as an agent, I’m going to look past that as some of what I said was also out of line’</strike> _ <strike></strike>

_ <strike>‘I shouldn’t have’</strike> _ <strike></strike>

_ <strike>‘You shouldn’t have’</strike> _ <strike></strike>

_ <strike>‘We shouldn’t have’</strike> _ <strike></strike>

_ <strike>‘Mistakes were made’</strike> _

Hamid sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. This wasn’t getting him anywhere; everything he tried to write either came out too apologetic, accusatory, not apologetic enough, or some hellish combination of the three. He was always so much better when he spoke to people in person…

Wait. Why didn’t he just do that?

_‘Zolf, I think we need to talk. Can we meet?’_

There. Nice and simple.

(Now he just needed to figure out what he was going to say.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there was one thing that Zolf and Azu had in common, it was a wealth of experience with overly reckless field agents. After all, they only knew of one person more reckless than Hamid, and that was Sasha.

Zolf hadn’t really intended to visit Azu in her quarters that day. But when, hours after he’d woken up, he still couldn’t calm his thoughts from their frantic racing, he found his feet carrying him in that direction almost on instinct. And, well, what was the point of trying to stop them; Azu was, if nothing else, a very good listener (and it would probably do him some good to talk about it).

His recent sleepless nights must have shown on his face, because when she saw him standing in her doorway she immediately ushered him inside, sitting him down on her couch and leaving the room hurriedly. She returned a few minutes later (not that Zolf was in a headspace where he could accurately keep track of the time) with two cups of tea, pressing one into Zolf’s hands before sitting next to him; close enough that he could feel the warmth of her, but not quite close enough to touch. They sat in silence for a while, both quietly sipping their tea, before Azu must have realised that Zolf had no intention of speaking first. “You… Zolf, you look terrible, if you don’t mind my saying. Like you haven’t slept in days.” Her tone was gentle, slightly chiding.

“That’s ’cause I haven’t,” Zolf grunted, choosing to stare down into his tea rather than face the concerned look he knew Azu would give him.

“Zolf…”

“I know, I know, I need to sleep so I can be at my best. I don’t have an operation scheduled until next week. It’s fine.” He paused just long enough to set his cup down on the table in front of him before continuing. “It’s just. I thought I would be fine. It’s been- It’s been five years. I should be able to… I should be able to function on the anniversary. Everyone thinks I should be able to, anyway. But then Hamid was ambushed, and all I could think was that it was my fault. That he was going to die, and it would be my fault, just like-” He cut himself off, taking a shaky breath.

“It wasn’t your fault, Zolf.” He opened his mouth to respond, but Azu shushed him. “It wasn’t, and I’m not having this argument with you anymore. My point is, even if Hamid had died - which he didn’t - it wouldn’t have been your fault either.”

“I should have known,” Zolf retorted. “The op was suspicious from the start, I should have noticed.”

“Honestly, Zolf, from what you’ve told me about it, I don’t think I would have realized any quicker than you did,” Azu said, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. “You’re not omniscient. Nobody is. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“But he almost _died_, Azu. How is that not my fault?” Despite everything, Azu’s hand on his shoulder was reassuring, and he could feel himself calming down, the racing of his thoughts growing less frantic by the second.

Azu shook her head slowly. “You can’t control everything he does. All you can do is give him all the information he needs and hope that he makes the right decision.”

Zolf sighed, deflating, and ran a hand down his face. “I just- I’m scared. This is… Hamid…”

“He’s lasted longer than the others, hasn’t he?”

Zolf let out a weak chuckle, at that. “Before demanding a transfer, you mean? Yeah, he has. Beat out the last one by a few months. Not that it matters anymore. He’s probably already put in the request by now.”

“You don’t know-”

“Yes, I do!” Zolf snapped (feeling the immediate stirrings of regret as Azu pulled her hand back, a hurt look on her face). “Why wouldn’t he? I _froze up_, Azu, and then I yelled at him for doing his job instead of just waiting there to die! Why wouldn’t he request a transfer to another coordinator, one that can actually do their job? One that doesn’t panic at the first sign of trouble!”

“Zolf…” she tried to interject, but he ignored her.

“He’s- he’s a good agent, better than the others, and he deserves… he deserves better than me. What would make him choose any differently?” Zolf slumped down, head in his hands, noticing that he’d apparently started shaking at some point during his rant.

Azu turned to him, holding her arms out in a silent invitation, one that he gratefully accepted. He leaned into her, resting his forehead on her shoulder as she wrapped her arms snugly around him. They sat like that for the almost ten minutes it took for Zolf to finally stop shaking, and then for a few minutes more.

“I’m sorry,” Zolf said, muffled by Azu’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t have yelled. You’re trying to help.”

“Apology accepted,” Azu responded. “I don’t think you should give up on him just yet. I know you think he’s requested a transfer, and I understand why, but…” She hesitated and Zolf pulled out of the hug to look at her. She was biting her lip, like she wasn’t quite sure what to say next. “I think he’s different.”

Zolf snorted a laugh, adjusting his position so that he was sitting up fully once more. “You’ve said that before.”

“I know, I just… I mean it this time. The others didn’t feel like they… fit?” Zolf gave her a questioning look (what did that even mean, fit?), but she just shrugged. “I can’t think of a better word for it. They didn’t fit with you, but Hamid… Hamid does. I think you should try to apologize, at the very least.”

As if her words had been some sort of cue, Zolf’s communicator chimed. Pulling it out, he saw a message from Hamid:

_‘Zolf, I think we need to talk. Can we meet?’_

He groaned, slouching back into the cushions behind him. “Looks like it’s too late, anyway. He wants to talk.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s too late. None of the others told you in person.”

“Look, Azu, I appreciate it, but I’m not- I don’t want to get my hopes up, okay?”

He typed a quick reply: _‘Sure. Meeting Room 7C in an hour?’_

The response was almost instant: _‘See you then.’_

(He knew Azu was right; even if Hamid had already put in his request, Zolf should still apologize. He’d been unfair, and he needed to make it better. Or at least as close to better as he could.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes apologies were necessary, no matter how difficult or awkward they might be. Unfortunately for them, both Hamid and Zolf had some apologizing to do if their partnership was ever going to work.

Hamid was early. He knew he was; he’d been checking the time obsessively since he’d gotten to the meeting room. That didn’t stop him from pacing the length of it anxiously, running through the apology he’d practiced over and over in his head (_I’m sorry for just running into danger, I should have warned you. I don’t think I made the wrong choice, but I should have seen if you had any ideas first)_.

He was about to complete his (approximately) twentieth lap of the room when the door opened to reveal Zolf standing awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. Hamid came to an abrupt stop, immediately rushing over to that side of the room, gesturing for Zolf to come in as he did so.

“Zolf! I’m, uh, I’m glad you came. I…” Hamid felt himself floundering, his carefully prepared apology abandoning him. “Uh… Sit! We can- we should sit. So we can talk.”

Zolf moved to sit at the table in the center of the room, twisting his ring around his finger as he did. Hamid hesitated, silently debating where he should sit (next to him? But maybe that would be too close. With one chair between them? That was just weird, no one does that) before finally settling into the seat across from him, so they were facing each other. He stared down at the table, tapping his fingers on its surface, desperately trying to recall the details of the apology he’d been practicing just a few minutes prior. “So, uh,” Zolf said, his voice tense and unsure. “You wanted to talk?”

Hamid snapped his eyes up to meet Zolf’s, “Oh, I- Yes, I do. I just…” Hamid paused, taking a slow breath before trying again. “I asked you to meet me because I need to apologize. I… I should have talked to you, before I carried out my plan.” He moved his gaze back down to the table, having found it increasingly difficult to maintain eye contact as Zolf stared at him. “I should have asked you if you had any input, or ways to improve it, or- or anything else, really. I should have talked to you, instead of just… jumping in without warning. And I’m sorry for yelling. You were just trying to do your job.” Glancing back up, he was surprised to see that Zolf looked… shocked, his eyes wide, eyebrows raised.

“You’re… that’s it?” Zolf asked, surprise clear in his tone. Hamid fought down a flash of anger at that (what did Zolf want from him? _More_ apologies? Grovelling?).

“What, was that not enough for you?” 

Zolf flinched slightly, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “No! No, I just… Was expecting you to tell me you’d requested a transfer. That’s what- what usually happens at this point.”

Hamid cocked his head, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “What _usually _happens?”

“You’re…” A pause as Zolf sighed heavily. “You’re not the first new partner I’ve had in the past few years. Hell, you’re not even the tenth. It’s just… usually, by this point whatever partner I have requests a transfer. I’m too… overbearing, apparently.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again. “None of the others ever… apologized for yelling at me. I- I appreciate it. Thank you, Hamid.”

Hamid felt a pang of sadness as Zolf smiled weakly at him (no wonder he’d been so closed off when Hamid met him. He was expecting him to leave; he was _preparing_ for him to leave. Hamid made a silent promise to do everything in his power to stay. Zolf deserved that, at the very least). “Of course, Zolf. If it helps any, I don’t think you’re overbearing.” Zolf snorted disbelievingly. “No, really, you just… You care. That’s a good thing, I think.”

“You’re the first one to think that, then.”

Hamid grinned at him. “I do like being unique.”

“That’s pretty obvious.” Zolf’s smile dropped, and he twisted his ring around his finger once more. “I, uh… I owe you an apology too. I- You were trying to do your job. You_ did _your job. You did what you needed to do to get out of there alive, and I… yelled at you for it. You did the best you could with what you had. It was my job to give you more to work with, and I didn’t, and that’s my fault. I wish you’d told me beforehand what you were going to do, but that’s no excuse. So. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” Hamid paused, taking in Zolf’s hunched posture, the agitated spinning of the ring on his finger (which Hamid was beginning to think was a nervous tic), and refusal to make eye contact. All signs pointed to Zolf not believing that Hamid really forgave him, but he didn’t know what he could do to remedy that, beyond- “Can I hug you?”

Zolf’s gaze snapped up to him, surprise evident in his expression. “I- really? S-sure, yeah, if you want to.”

Hamid got up from his chair, gesturing for Zolf to get up as well, and moved around the table to stand in front of him. He hesitated for a few seconds, examining him to make sure he was really okay with this, then leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Zolf’s shoulders (going up onto his tiptoes in order to do so). Zolf stiffened for a moment, then relaxed into it, his arms coming up to hold Hamid in return.

Zolf was warm and solid, and it wasn’t until that moment that Hamid realized he hadn’t hugged anyone in (Weeks? Months? Since he’d joined the Agency? He was surprised to find that he couldn’t even remember) a very long time. He hadn’t realised how much he missed it.

It was nice.

When they finally pulled back Zolf’s face was flushed, his gaze sliding away from Hamid’s to rest on the wall behind his head. “Thank you, Zolf. I… I needed that.” Zolf just shrugged in response, still refusing to make eye contact. 

The atmosphere was tense, and Hamid hated it (wanted to do something, _say _something to convince Zolf that he wasn’t going to leave, something to relieve the tension in the air between them). “You know I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon, right? You’re… you’re good. We work well together.”

Zolf snorted at that, but finally shifted his gaze over to meet Hamid’s, a crooked grin taking up residence on his face. Hamid was going to call that a win.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turned out, working cohesively as a unit was a lot easier when the people involved actually knew each other. Given a couple months to work out their differences, and Zolf and Hamid were starting to make a wonderful team.

“Okay, so this one should be pretty simple,” Zolf said as he spread the floor-plans for the building Hamid would infiltrate on the table between them. “Just an in-and-out. Shouldn’t be too many guards, even.”

Hamid snorted, “That sure doesn’t _look _simple.” He stood up from his chair, making a show of counting the papers as Zolf put them down. “How many print-outs is this, twenty?”

“I, uh, may have gotten a little carried away,” Zolf mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“A little?” Hamid gestured to the papers, “This doesn’t seem like _a little_.”

“It’s a skyscraper, okay? There’s a lot of floors, which means there’s a lot of floor-plans.”

“I thought the mission brief said I was going into the basement?”

“You are.”

Hamid shook his head slightly, almost fondly, if Zolf was reading his expression right (which he would hope he was, given they’d been working together for months now). “Then why did you print out the upper floors?”

“You never know,” he said with a shrug. “They might come in handy.”

“If you think I’m going to be running up the stairs from the basement to the…” Hamid took a moment to consult the plans, “twenty-fifth floor, then you are sorely mistaken.”

Zolf nudged him with an elbow. “Give yourself a bit more credit, you could do it.”

“Just because I can, doesn’t mean I’m _willing_ to!” Hamid tried to glare at him, but gave up after a few seconds, bursting into laughter and leaning into Zolf. 

(Had Hamid always been this warm? Zolf had never noticed before, but now he felt practically scorching where he was pressed against Zolf’s upper arm, hands holding onto Zolf’s elbow as he laughed uproariously.)

He looked down to where Hamid was clutching his arm, eyes squeezed shut as he continued to laugh, and felt his face heat up (which, _no_, that wasn’t okay. Hamid was his _agent_). He cleared his throat, speaking louder in order to be heard over Hamid’s near-hysterics. “_Anyway_, I’ve got you a possible entrance strategy that I want your opinion on…”

* * *

“I am never, _ever_, letting you convince me that sewers are a viable entrance _ever again_.”

Zolf couldn’t help but chuckle at Hamid’s affronted tone. “It was the safest way in!”

“_Never_,” came Hamid’s voice again. “And I’ll be getting my revenge when I get back.”

“I’m looking forward to you trying,” Zolf said with a grin.

Suddenly, he heard a squelching noise, followed quickly by the sounds of Hamid retching. “Oh, _eugh_. I don’t- I don’t even want to know what I just stepped in. I just, ugh. I can’t even glare at you for putting me through this because there aren’t any cameras down here.”

Zolf felt himself tense slightly at the reminder of his blindness. “I don’t like that any more than you do.”

Hamid must have heard the slight strain in his voice, because he immediately responded, “Hey, it’s alright. There’s nothing down here to see, anyway. It’s positively boring.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Hamid. But thank you.” Glancing over to the sewer layouts he had printed out on the desk next to his monitors, he continued, “There should be a ladder just ahead.”

“Yep, I see it. Is that the one?”

“It is, indeed. Get ready to crawl.” He heard the sounds of Hamid climbing the ladder, then grunting as he pulled himself into the much narrower drainage duct above the sewer. “You’ve got the directional charges, right?”

“I do, I triple-checked before I left. Would hate to get this far and realize I’d forgotten them.” There was a pause as he pulled himself forward through the tunnel. “For once it’s a good thing I’m so small, huh? How far do I have to go through here again?”

* * *

Hamid shut the door softly behind him, bolting the door for good measure. “Okay,” he whispered. Zolf watched him examining the room through his grainy camera feed, taking in the dozens of server banks and monitors filling almost the entire room, with barely enough room between them for someone to walk. “So, uh… which bank is the data we need in?”

After a quick consultation with his notes, Zolf turned back to the monitors. “If you go down the second aisle on your right, it should be the… third bank down.” 

It didn’t take Hamid long to find the correct one and begin downloading the data. While he did, Zolf took a moment to examine the rest of the room through the cameras. On the far side he saw something strange. He leaned closer to the screen, trying to identify what it was, when Hamid’s voice abruptly broke him out of his reverie. “I’ve got it. Is there anything else, or can I get out of here?”

“Uh, one second, I just…” Zolf said as Hamid emerged from the aisle into the center of the room. “There’s something… Can you see that _thing _on the far wall?”

He saw Hamid turn to face it, then start moving in that direction, slow and cautious. “I can. It’s just shelving but the things on it… They… they remind me of- of Barrett’s tech. There’s some sort of… goggles over here. And a gun. I thought he was the only one that had anything like this.”

Zolf frowned. “I thought so, too. But… It’s got to be a coincidence. Barrett’s still in custody, last I checked. Maybe whoever supplied him found a new buyer.”

“Maybe.” Hamid didn’t sound so sure, but before he could say anything more Zolf spotted someone approaching the room on one of the other camera feeds.

“Doesn’t matter, you need to get out of there; someone’s coming. If you head out the same door you came in, you should be able to avoid them.”

Hamid did as Zolf said, following the direction Zolf gave him for an alternate route back to the hole he’d blown in the floor of one of the nearby storage rooms. Before he jumped down, though, he looked up to the camera (which, Zolf supposed, was as close to looking him in the eye as he could get at that moment). “We need to tell Sasha about this. She deserves to know.”

Zolf sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “We will. But we need to get you out of there first.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hamid muttered, lowering himself into the hole in the floor. “I know, I’ve got a long crawl back to the sewers. Ugh.”

Zolf didn’t quite manage to stifle a laugh at that, and Hamid flipped him off before disappearing from view.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, there’s nothing to be done but wait it out.

“So,” Hamid said, pacing the length of his quarters, “what do we do? We need to tell Sasha, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Zolf echoed from his seat at the table. Hamid paused just long enough to shoot him a look before continuing his pacing, and Zolf raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m not making fun of you, promise. Just agreeing.” Hamid snorted, but Zolf ignored him and continued, “We need to see about Barrett too. I might be able to get in and interrogate him while you go explain everything to Sasha. Maybe get him to tell us who his supplier is.”

Hamid let out a sigh, scrubbing his hand down his face, then collapsed into the chair next to Zolf’s. “She’s not going to like it.”

Zolf nudged Hamid’s shoulder and grinned at him, trying to lighten the mood. “Why do you think I volunteered to be somewhere very far away while you do it?”

Hamid couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Coward.” There was no bite to his words, just the distinct softness of affection.

“Nah, I just have a survival instinct.”

“Fine. But if I get killed by a stray dagger, Azu’s getting all my stuff.”

Zolf pressed a fist to his mouth, obviously trying to stop himself from laughing. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he forced out between aborted chuckles.

“Says the one who’s not even going to be there!” Hamid retorted. He finally stopped his pacing, turning to rummage through one of the nearby cabinets. “But right now, I think I need a drink.” He found what he was looking for, pulling a bottle of wine off the shelf and holding it out toward Zolf. “You in?”

Zolf looked startled, his eyebrows raised. “Wh-really? I thought you’d want to talk about this whole…” He made a vague gesture that Hamid interpreted to mean _‘whatever the hell is going on here,’_ “situation more.”

Hamid shrugged. “Honestly? Not really. We can’t do anything about it tonight, and there’s not much more to say. So the way I figure it,” he tipped the neck of the wine bottle in Zolf’s direction, “we might as well.”

Zolf stared at Hamid for a long moment, eyes narrowed as he examined him. Then he stood from his chair, moving toward the small kitchen area. “You open the bottle, I’ll grab the glasses.” He smiled at Hamid over his shoulder, and Hamid felt himself flush slightly as he smiled back (and no, that wasn’t okay. Zolf was his coordinator, there was no room for… _that_).

* * *

“So, I grab Saleh’s arm, ’cause I’m- I’m trying to pull him back before he gets punched - like a good brother, might I add - and he tries to pull away from me. Ends up falling straight into the person who was going to punch him!” Hamid could hear his words slurring together slightly as he tried to tell the story, but despite that Zolf still seemed entirely absorbed in it. “God, that bruise didn’t go away for weeks! He- he told our parents he ran into a door. And they believed him!” He paused, his gaze drifting away from Zolf as he thought back to that day. “Or maybe they didn’t. I- I really don’t know.” Looking back down to Zolf, he saw that a lopsided smile had taken up residence on his face (Zolf had a nice smile. Hamid didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed that before).

“Seems like you’re… pretty close to them, huh?”

Hamid felt his smile drop at Zolf’s words; the abrupt reminder of the agreement he’d somehow forgotten about. “I, ah… I was. Can’t be anymore, I guess.” Zolf looked confused, which Hamid supposed made sense; if his brother had also been an agent, the rest of his family might have been involved as well, so he wouldn’t know. “When I took this job, I agreed not to see my family. Ever.”

“Oh, I’m- I’m sorry, I didn’t…” Zolf trailed off, and Hamid startled as he felt Zolf’s hand come to rest on top of his on the table. “Sorry.”

Hamid shrugged lightly, giving Zolf a smile (which felt weak and unconvincing, even to him). “It’s fine. I- I knew what I was getting into.”

Zolf stared at him for a few moments before coming to some sort of decision. He set his jaw, adjusting his grip on Hamid’s hand so he held it more securely and standing up from the table. “C’mon,” he said, tugging Hamid out of his chair (and nearly into him; Hamid’s balance was not faring well under the assault of the wine), “I’ve got an idea.” Hamid wanted to ask exactly what this idea was, but Zolf was already pulling him out of the room, guiding him through the halls quickly and purposefully.

A few minutes later, Zolf opened the door and led Hamid into a room he recognized; the one where Sasha had introduced the two of them for the first time. The monitors were all dark now, with no one there to watch them, and Zolf dropped Hamid’s hand in favour of turning on one of them, taking a second to type something on the keyboard in front of it. “Where does your family live?” he asked, turning to look at Hamid.

“Uh, Cairo. Egypt.”

“Can you give me the address?” Zolf asked, smiling gently at him. Hamid did, and Zolf entered it. Suddenly, three more of the monitors lit up, each showing a different view of the al Tahan family estate. Zolf whistled under his breath, “You lived here?”

“Yeah. Until I moved to London.” He saw movement on one of the monitors and leaned closer to look at it. It was Saira, her head tilted back to look up at the stars (or at least as many as could be seen given the bright lights of the city). He couldn’t see her expression - she was too far from the camera for that - but her posture looked… relaxed. Content. Hamid felt a little breathless with the relief that flooded him in that moment. They were okay, his family was okay, even with him gone, even with him _dead_ as far as they were aware. “Zolf, this is…” The tears gathering in his eyes were blurring his view of the screen, reducing Saira to nothing more than a dark spot on an even darker background, but that was okay. That was okay, because she was fine.

He leaned over into Zolf, resting his head on his shoulder and taking a shuddering breath. “You alright?” Zolf asked, moving his arm to wrap around Hamid’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” Hamid said, as the tears finally spilled over onto his cheeks. “I’m okay. Thank you for this. I…” Hamid huffed out a watery laugh. “I’ll admit it’s a bit… creepy, to spy on my family but… They’re okay. They’re really okay.” He turned his head to press his face into Zolf’s chest, feeling Zolf’s arm tighten around him as he did.

On the screen, Saira turned to go back inside the house, her steps slow and measured (and though neither of them could see it, tear tracks staining her cheeks).


	10. Bonus - Saira

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her little brother was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about this. It's so sad. Saira is so sad. I made a promise I was going to write something happy and instead I wrote this.  
Warning: this chapter contains discussion of major character death (namely Hamid). He's not actually dead, but Saira thinks he is.

Her little brother was dead. _Hamid _was dead. She’d talked to him on the phone, what, four days ago? Five? And he’d been _fine_. He’d told her he was _fine_. And she’d believed him.

And now he was dead. He was _gone_. And don’t get her wrong; she _knew _it wasn’t her fault. She _knew_ she couldn’t have done anything to stop it, that nothing she could have said would have prevented that terrible accident. But that didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t make it any easier to know that, sometimes, bad things happened to good people, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

God, she- she hadn’t even told him she loved him, during that last phone call. She’d meant to, she really had. They always did, her and Hamid, like a little tradition. But he’d sounded so stressed, and she’d tried to ask him what was wrong, but he just made up some excuse that she couldn’t even remember before hanging up on her without so much as a goodbye.

(It had been weird, and she’d worried about him. Their conversations had been known to last for hours in the past, both chatting idly about anything and everything. Saira would tell him about her work, and he’d complain that his was awfully boring. He’d ask after the rest of the family, even though she knew he talked to them at least once a week as well, and she would tell him about the twins’ latest escapades, or the terrible joke Saleh had made the day before. He’d laugh, then occasionally he would sigh and tell her that he missed them, that he missed _home_. So she’d tell him about some of the boring things, some of the bad things, just to make him feel better. She was never sure if it worked, but she always hoped that it did. She hoped that she helped, at least a little.)

She was going to miss him.

* * *

Saira was pretty sure if she stayed inside any longer, she was going to burst into tears again.

(She’d been doing that a lot, these last few days. But who could blame her? Her brother was dead, she was helping to organize his _funeral_.)

But her mother already looked to be on the verge of tears herself, and her father had only just managed to calm her down. If she started crying now, her mother would too, and Saira just… She didn’t want that. Of course she didn’t. So she hurried out of the room with a muttered excuse of ‘needing some fresh air’ and made her way through the halls, trying to muffle her sobs lest one of the servants hear her and try to help.

(She didn’t _want_ help right then. She just wanted to cry for a while; to let it out without someone trying to make her feel better. She didn’t _want_ to feel better, for God’s sake! Her brother was dead! _Hamid_ was dead, and she just… needed some space to grieve.)

She hadn’t really paid any attention to where she was going, instead letting muscle memory guide her through the halls of the estate as she focused on staying as quiet as possible. So she was a bit startled when she looked up after pushing yet another door open to find herself in the back garden. It was dark and quiet outside, and the night air was refreshingly cool on her skin.

She looked up to the sky, the darkness edged by the glow of the nearby city, stopping her from seeing many of the stars.

(She and Hamid used to sneak outside sometimes when they were younger, in the middle of the night. Hamid had wanted to see the stars, was somehow convinced that one day, if he kept trying, there would be more. That the glow of the city would dull less of them, somehow. It never happened, but that was okay, because he smiled anyway as he tilted his head back to stare at them in awe. Saira had never really cared to see the stars; she had just wanted to see him smile.)

She looked up to the sky, tracing the constellations she and Hamid had created, once upon a time, so long ago.

She looked up at the stars, and let herself cry.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with an old friend can, and often will, be very frustrating. Especially if that old friend is one Oscar Wilde.

God, Zolf hated paperwork. He was fairly certain that he’d filled out this exact form three times already in the - he checked his watch - nearly three hours he’d been sitting in that damned featureless room. He threw his pen down onto the table in front of him, shoving the forms away with a frustrated sigh.

Wilde glanced up at him from across the room. “Done already?” Zolf didn’t respond, leaning back and pushing his hands through his hair. “I thought not. I’m afraid I can’t let you in to see him until you fill that out.”

Zolf snatched the pen back up, staring down at the page in front of him and taking a deep breath. Then he groaned, letting his head fall forward to rest on the table. He heard the scrape of Wilde’s chair as he stood from his desk, the click of his shoes as he made his way over to Zolf. There was the thump of something heavy being dropped next to him, and he looked up to see that Wilde had set down another veritable _mountain_ of paperwork. “Wilde… What is that?” he said through gritted teeth. 

“What does it look like?” Wilde said, his tone infuriatingly smug.

Zolf squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before looking back to him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not,” he said over his shoulder as he turned to go back to his desk.

“Oh, cut the bullshit!” Zolf snapped, standing so abruptly that he almost knocked over his chair. “I’ve done this before, Wilde, and I know you have too!” He stalked around the table toward him, forcing himself into Wilde’s space and jabbing a finger into his chest. “We both know this isn’t normal! So tell me what the hell is going on!”

Wilde seemed unfazed, or he would have if it were anyone but Zolf he was trying to fool. But Zolf knew him well; he could see the slight narrowing of his eyes, the twitch at the corner of his mouth, and he knew that he was getting to him. “I’m going to need you to take a step back, Zolf. Before I’ll be forced to _make_ you.”

Zolf glared at him, but backed off nonetheless (noticing how Wilde relaxed marginally as he did). “I thought you were better than this, Wilde. I thought-” _that I knew you_, he didn’t say (he didn’t have the right to say that, did he? He’d been avoiding Wilde for a long time, had barely spoken ten words to him in the last five years. How well could he really know him?).

He threw the pen back onto the table, feeling immense satisfaction as it left a mark on one of the untouched papers, and turned to leave. “I am sorry, Zolf. Your brother… Feryn wouldn’t have wanted us to… Just know, if you ever need any help, I’ll be where you always knew to find us.”

Zolf suppressed the urge to look back at Wilde as he said that; _‘I’ll be where you always knew to find us…’_ He knew he shouldn’t get his hopes up, it had probably been a mistake, it probably didn’t mean anything.

But if it hadn’t been...

He needed to be sure.

* * *

Zolf hadn’t realized just how long it had been since he’d been to the cabin until he was standing in front of it, frozen facing down the door like he was afraid of what he’d find on the other side. Which didn’t make any sense; most likely there would just be nothing, just the same as it had been the last time he’d been there, albeit with more dust and cobwebs. 

In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure why he had come at all. Wilde probably hadn’t meant anything by his comment earlier -it had probably been a slip of the tongue, a mistake, nothing more - and Zolf was just getting his hopes up for nothing. But ever since he’d left that room he couldn’t get the conversation out of his head. The thought that he might be wrong, that he might miss out on the opportunity to talk to Wilde - properly talk to him, without cameras recording their every move - was unbearable.

So there he was, standing in front of a little log cabin that had no right to be as frightening as it was, waiting for some sign that he’d made the right decision. A sign which came a few seconds later, in the form of a voice behind him.

“Zolf,” Wilde sounded relieved, like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders for just a moment (and god, did it make him sound like he used to, back before everything that had happened). “You came. I’m… I’m glad. I wasn’t sure if you’d caught onto what I was trying to say.” Wilde swept past him, fishing a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. He coughed as he pushed it open, the cloud of dust that had been sent flying into the air by the motion clearly visible in the early morning sun. Zolf followed him, barely resisting the urge to cough himself as he entered the cabin.

“I… didn’t realize how long it had been,” Wilde said, looking around at the furniture, the bits and pieces of technology, the little indicators of who they’d been all those years ago. “It looks just the same, doesn’t it? For some reason I thought… I don’t know. I thought it’d be different, I suppose. Because _we _are.” His gaze fell on Zolf, still standing uncomfortably in the doorway. “Come on, leaving the door open will just stir up more dust.”

Zolf finally stepped forward, closing the door behind him, and stood facing Wilde in the center of the tiny, one-room cabin. Over Wilde’s shoulder he could see the fireplace, and on the mantle…

“God, I forgot I left this here,” he said, stepping around Wilde to take a closer look. “One of… one of Feryn’s old earpieces.” He reached out to pick it up, then pulled his hand back (now wasn’t the time; he was here for a reason, not to let himself drown in memories of what had been. Things were different now). “Why’d you ask me to come here, Wilde?” he asked, still staring at the earpiece, for some reason unable to will himself to look away, as if it would disappear if he did, taking yet another piece of Feryn away from him.

“There were some things I couldn’t tell you where we’d be heard.” Wilde took a deep breath, and Zolf (finally) tore his gaze away from the mantle to see him pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. He stayed that way for a moment before opening them again and dropping his hand. “You wanted to speak to Barrett. And you had perfectly legitimate reasons. But I couldn’t let you; I’m under orders not to let _anyone_ in to see Barrett, and I don’t know why. If you’re convinced that what you needed to speak to him about was so important that you’d sit filling out paperwork you knew you didn’t need to for three hours… I figured I should let you know. I owe you that much, at least.”

“I… Thank you, Wilde. I appreciate it.”

Wilde just shrugged, breaking eye contact, choosing instead to look past Zolf to the mantle. “I’ve… I’ve missed you, Zolf. I know why we don’t talk. And I get it, I do. But Feryn wouldn’t have-”

“Shut up, Wilde,” Zolf snapped, cutting him off. “Don’t try to guilt me into talking to you. It’s not going to work. I just _can’t_, okay?” He pushed past Wilde and headed for the door, flinging it open, then hesitated. “Goodbye, Wilde.” With that, he left the cabin, and Wilde, behind (again).


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes one has to be the bearer of bad news, no matter how desperately they don’t want to be.

Hamid very much didn’t want to be standing outside the door to Sasha’s quarters at that exact moment. In fact, he would have rathered he was anywhere else. But he was there, and he couldn’t turn around and leave because he had something he needed to tell her, no matter how badly he thought she might react to the news.

So instead of walking away like he so desperately wanted to, he pressed the buzzer next to her door, simultaneously hoping that she _was _there and that she wasn’t.

(The thing was, he wanted to tell her about everything that had happened, he really did, but he also didn’t want to be the one to upset her. He knew she wouldn’t hold it against him; it wasn’t his fault that he’d found the tech in that basement. And honestly, she’d probably appreciate knowing about it. But still, from everything he’d heard about Barrett, that technology, and Sasha’s past… She wasn’t going to be happy, hearing that someone else had access to all that.)

When the door slid open to reveal Azu rather than Sasha, Hamid wasn’t surprised; the same thing had happened nearly every time he’d gone to visit Sasha’s quarters. Hamid got the impression that they spent a not insignificant amount of their free time together, in addition to the time taken to plan out and complete their various operations.

Azu looked like she’d been about to speak, but seeing Hamid’s expression stopped, silently gesturing for Hamid to come inside.

Entering the main room, he saw Sasha curled up against the arm of her couch, knees drawn up to her chest (not like she was uncomfortable, Hamid didn’t think, but rather the exact opposite), sipping a mug of what he assumed was tea. She glanced up as he came in, then looked over to Azu, one eyebrow raised. “Hey, Hamid. What’s going on? You and Zolf okay?”

Hamid was a bit thrown; he hadn’t expected that to be the first thing out of Sasha’s. “Oh, I, uh, we’re fine. That’s not- that’s not what I came to talk to you about.” Hamid hesitated, debating the best way to tell her what he and Zolf had discovered as he sat down heavily in the chair across from her. “There’s… there’s something I need to tell you.”

* * *

When Hamid finally finished, Sasha sat, silent and unmoving, staring off into the middle distance, for a long time. She didn’t look angry, or even particularly upset (though her calmness may have been somewhat the result of the weight of Azu’s arm over her shoulders. Hamid knew first-hand how reassuring that could be), just… concerned, maybe? It was always hard to tell, with her.

(She looked kind of adorable, curled up next to Azu like that. Not that Hamid would ever dare tell her.)

Strangely, Azu was the first to break the silence. “So, how can we help?” Her jaw was set, a spark of determination in her eyes as she asked. Next to her, Sasha had a similar expression, her hands balled into fists on her lap.

Hamid sighed, shrugging one shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t even know what we’re planning to _do_. Zolf went to see about talking to Barrett this morning, so I guess…” He trailed off, abruptly realizing that he’d been there with Sasha and Azu for a couple hours (and had delayed going to see Sasha for about an hour before that), so Zolf should have gotten back to him already. He hoped that meant he was getting something useful from Barrett. Shaking his head sharply, he continued. “There’s not really much to be done until he finishes up there.”

Sasha straightened up, sliding out from under Azu’s arm as she did. “Barrett did… a lot of bad things with that tech. If someone else has it now… We need to stop them. So just… Keep us updated, alright?”

“Of course.”

* * *

He stuck around for a few hours after that, since he had absolutely nothing else to do for the rest of the day (or at least until Zolf finally got back to him). He hadn’t been intending to, not wanting to intrude, but Azu had insisted (and by insisted, he meant that she practically wrestled him back into his chair when he tried to get up to leave).

Their conversation cycled through topics, never staying too long on any one. And if Hamid noticed that Azu made sure to change the topic to keep him engaged whenever she spotted him checking his communicator for messages and coming up dry… Well, he wasn’t going to mention it if she didn’t (though he did appreciate the effort, even if it did nothing to soothe his worries about Zolf’s silence). Eventually, it circled back around to him and Zolf (no matter how obviously Azu had been trying to steer it away):

“So, how are you and Zolf doing?” Sasha asked, completely oblivious to all Azu’s attempts to distract him. “I know when me and Azu first got together there were some rough spots.”

(Hamid hadn’t really been paying attention to the conversation for the previous few minutes, more occupied with resisting the urge to check his communicator _again_ for a message from Zolf. That was the only reason he could come up with, looking back on the conversation, for why he completely misinterpreted Sasha’s question.)

“O-oh we’re not- I mean Zolf and I, uh, we don’t- we’re not together. Like… like that.” More stumbling denials died on his tongue as he noticed the looks that Sasha and Azu were giving him; Sasha’s eyes narrowed in confusion as she stared, Azu’s raised eyebrows and slightly pursed lips that told him she was trying her best not to smile. “Oh… You- you meant. Working together.”

Sasha just gave him a look, one which he took to mean, _yeah, of course that’s what I was asking_. “We’re fine,” Hamid said hurriedly, before either of them could say anything. “We’re better than fine, actually. We’re great. We work well together.”

Azu looked like she was about to say something, still visibly restraining a grin, but Sasha gave her a look (and Hamid was incredibly grateful for her in that moment). “That’s good. I’m glad.”

The conversation moved on quickly after that, and before Hamid knew it hours had passed, and he finally left (it having gotten late enough that Azu would let him go).

(It didn’t mean anything. It had just been a misunderstanding, that was all.)

* * *

Hamid sent Zolf messages throughout the rest of the day; asking how the interrogation had gone, at first, then just asking what happened, then if he was okay. Could anyone blame him, though? Complete radio silence like that was out of character for Zolf as of late, especially given his promise that he’d let Hamid know how it’d gone, so of course Hamid was worried.

He didn’t get any response until that night, just before he was going to settle into bed, and even then it was short and lacking in any sort of explanation for why he hadn’t responded to anything all day:

_‘Something came up. I’ll come to your quarters at noon tomorrow to discuss.’_

(Unless Zolf had an absolutely _fantastic_ excuse, Hamid was going to lecture him extensively on what it means to actually _communicate_. Because that message _did not count._)


	13. Bonus - Azu and Sasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azu has a fantastic idea. Sasha disagrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really intend for there to be more than one bonus chapter for this AU, but now I've got three more in the works so...

Azu turned to Sasha the moment the door closed behind Hamid, the kind of gleeful expression on her face she only got when she felt she’d come up with a truly fantastic idea (the kind of expression that Sasha loved to see, most of the time. Just… not now, not about this). Before she could say anything, however, Sasha raised a hand, shaking her head. “No.”

“Why not? They’d be good together,” Azu said with an almost pleading tone.

Sasha levelled her with the most deadpan look she could possibly manage in the face of the puppy eyes Azu was currently giving her. “They’re already good together. We don’t need to make it any more complicated.”  
“It turned out alright for _us_,” Azu said, moving away from the door to sit back down next to Sasha on the couch. The force of her puppy eyes wasn’t subsiding in the least; if anything they were actually getting more intense (and harder to ignore, on Sasha’s part). It was making it somewhat more difficult for Sasha to remember her (very logical, thank you very much) argument for why she shouldn’t just cave to whatever Azu wanted right then.

“Yeah, well, not everyone’s us, alright? Besides, we had some problems at first.” She had some very vivid memories of Azu nearly panicking the first time Sasha had gone into the field just after they’d gotten together (it had turned out fine in the end. But that didn’t mean it didn’t very nearly _not_ turn out fine). “Zolf already goes a bit overboard, trying to keep Hamid safe. You really want that to get _worse_?”

Azu’s face fell as Sasha spoke (which she would have taken as a win if not for how much she hated making her upset). “I guess…”

Sasha shifted closer to her, leaning her head on Azu’s shoulder (or more accurately upper arm, thanks to the height difference). “If it makes you feel any better, they might get there on their own, like we did.”

She felt Azu shift to stare down at her, giving her an incredulous look (but at the very least she wasn’t frowning anymore). “You really think they will figure out their feelings on their own?”

Sasha shrugged one shoulder, adjusting to tuck her feet up underneath herself on the couch. “I dunno, why not?”

“Sasha, my heart, you _know_ how oblivious Zolf can be, especially about his own emotions. God forbid other’s.” Sasha made a noncommittal sound that Azu must have taken to be disbelief, since she continued. “Don’t you remember Deborah from accounting flirting with Zolf for three months straight without him noticing at all.”

Sasha snorted at the memory. “Oh god, yeah! He was so surprised when you pointed it out.” She paused, considering (there couldn’t be much harm in it, could there? If the way Hamid had reacted earlier was any indication, there might already be something between the two of them, and Azu had always been good at that sort of thing…). “You might be right. Hamid’d be good for him.” Azu’s face broke out into a smile and she looked like she was about to speak, but Sasha kept going before she could. “But I’m not helping with whatever plan you come up with to get them together, alright?”

Azu made a valiant effort to look disappointed at that, but her excitement at getting Sasha’s… not permission - approval, perhaps? - broke the facade. “That’s fine! If you ever change your mind, though-”

“I won’t.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s time for Hamid’s first undercover operation, and he’s not nervous at all.  
Right?

Zolf had barely set foot in Hamid’s quarters when the lecture began, Hamid jabbing a finger into his chest as he told him off for not contacting him earlier, and not actually telling him what was going on when he finally did. Or something along those lines; he wasn’t listening that closely, far more occupied with processing what he had learned from Wilde just a few hours earlier. That wasn’t to say that Zolf didn’t feel bad for not telling him what was going on, he did, it was just that he hadn’t really known himself until that morning (and it didn’t exactly make him feel any more reassured when he finally did. In all honesty, it probably wouldn’t make Hamid feel any better either).

Finally, after almost five solid minutes of Hamid’s impassioned ranting about the importance of communication he finally ran out of steam, giving Zolf the chance to explain himself (not that he was particularly looking forward to it, given that he knew Hamid would have questions. Ones that he wouldn’t necessarily know all the answers to).

“I never got in to talk to Barrett.” Zolf felt himself tense preemptively, bracing for whatever Hamid would say in response (knowing that he was probably going to say it very loudly).

“You what?! You were gone for hours!” Hamid was nearly shouting, his shock forcing his voice up an octave. “What were you doing?”

Zolf raised his hands placatingly, then gently laid them on Hamid’s shoulders as he started to bounce on the balls of his feet. “I tried, I really did. Filled out paperwork for hours before I finally got fed up and left.” Hamid looked like he was about to interject (probably to ask why, or some other question he didn’t know how to answer) but Zolf just shook his head and continued. “I don’t know why. Either way, it’s a dead end. We’ll have to find some other way to figure out who his supplier is.”

(Zolf felt guilty for not mentioning his meeting with Wilde, but there was nothing to be done about it. What he’d told him… it implied that something was very, very wrong within the agency. If there was _any_ sort of corruption, he couldn’t tell Hamid about it anywhere they could be observed.)

* * *

Zolf didn’t know why Hamid had asked him to help him just then; he was perfectly capable of putting on a tie himself, as far as Zolf was aware (though maybe the way his hands were shaking was part of the problem). 

“You doing okay, Hamid?” Zolf asked, reaching up to tug Hamid’s hands away from where they were fiddling with the tie (resisting the quite frankly ridiculous urge to keep holding them). 

“I’m fine,” Hamid replied, giving him a slightly shaky smile. “Just a bit… not nervous. Just… It’s our first undercover op.”

“Y’know, I was a lot more anxious than you seem to be before my first undercover.” He chuckled lightly at the memory. “My, uh… my brother, Feryn, he had to do my tie up for me too. I don’t think any amount of training would’ve changed that.”

(That was the first time he’d mentioned his brother to Hamid, Zolf realized abruptly. He’d figured that Hamid knew about him, from Sasha and Azu or from looking him up on his own. He didn’t blame him, either way; he wasn’t the first of Zolf’s field agents to find out without him telling them.)

“Nice to know I’m not the only one, anyway. Thanks, Zolf.” Hamid’s smile softened as he spoke, clearly at least a bit reassured by the anecdote. Zolf shifted his attention away from his face (from that damn smile) down to the tie before his face inevitably heated under the attention (not that it meant anything. Because it didn’t. Not at all).

“Anytime.” He fastened the tie quickly, trying his best not to let his hands linger (no matter how much they seemed to want to, the traitors). He looked back up to him as he stepped back. “You’re going to do fine.”

Hamid moved forward, back into Zolf’s space, throwing his arms around his neck in a tight hug. After a moment of surprise, Zolf hugged back.

* * *

“Okay, Zolf, it’s showtime.”

“Hamid…”

“I know, I know, radio silence once I’m in the ballroom. I just _had_ to say it.”

“Just… be careful.”

“You know it.”

* * *

It was driving Zolf a little insane, having to simply watch as Hamid moved effortlessly among the other partygoers. He was blending in flawlessly, there was nothing wrong, and if Hamid kept it up nothing _would_ go wrong, but still… He didn’t know how Wilde used to manage it, back in the day, knowing that he was entirely powerless to help.

(It probably wouldn’t have been nearly as frustrating, if not for Hamid being unable to sneak an earpiece into the gala, like they’d expected he could; security was too tight, and it was too much of a risk. He was completely on his own until he got Grizzop into the building through one of the ventilation in one of the back rooms. So not only could Zolf not talk to him at all - which had always been the plan, if everything went smoothly - but he couldn’t even warn him if something was wrong; he could do _nothing_. Thank God, Grizzop had thought to bring an extra earpiece, in addition to all the other equipment he was smuggling in, or Zolf might have actually lost it.)

Lacking anything else to do while Hamid waited for an opportunity to sneak out of the ballroom, Zolf glanced over to Vesseek’s monitors. They seemed focused on them, ready to jump in at a moment’s notice should something change, despite the fact that there was nothing that could conceivably go wrong with the operation at this point. Though, given that they were used to working with Grizzop, around whom plans had a tendency to change rapidly, he didn’t think he could blame them for being so intent.

Grizzop was just climbing into the vents now, through a grate in the basement, but it wasn’t that long a distance from there to the rendezvous with Hamid. It wouldn’t take very long. Glancing back to his feeds of the ballroom, he could see Hamid chatting with a woman in a shimmering red dress (who was at least a foot taller than him).

He pressed his lips into a thin line as the woman laid a hand on Hamid’s shoulder and he gave her a radiant smile (he could feel the stirrings of something like jealousy in his chest. Something that he was just going to ignore, thank you very much, since it was in no way useful to the current operation. Or useful ever, in fact). Then, using the point of contact, Hamid shifted in such a way as to make her overbalance, tilting forward and spilling the cocktail in her other hand all down his front. Zolf didn’t have any audio, but he could see as her hands fluttered near his now soaked shirtfront, clearly apologizing. He could see as Hamid waved it off with a gracious smile, then turned to leave the ballroom through one of the halls near the back; the one that presumably led to the bathrooms, and the rendezvous.

“Clever, Hamid,” Zolf murmured under his breath, for no one’s benefit but his own, as he tapped a few commands into the keyboard in front of him. “Looping the feeds now, you’ve got ten minutes.”

It didn’t take Hamid long to reach the storage room where Grizzop was waiting for him, and Zolf let out a sigh of relief as he handed Hamid the spare earpiece.

“Hamid, you read me?”

Hamid waved a little to the camera whose feed Zolf had hijacked. “Loud and clear.”

Zolf glanced over to Vesseek with a questioning look, and they nodded back. “Alright then, let’s get on with this. You’ve got about…” he paused to check the timer he’d set when he first looped the camera feeds, “Eight minutes left to get to your objective. You’re clear if you exit the room now and head left down the hall.”

Vesseek kept an eye on any potential threats, telling Hamid and Grizzop to duck into smaller side rooms and stairwells occasionally to let guards pass, while Zolf focused on the route they needed to take to get to the labs on the upper floors. As such, it went pretty quickly, and they’d made it to the door to the first lab with three minutes to spare. Grizzop placed a device over the optical scanner next to it. “You got this, Vesseek?”

“Yep.” They popped the ‘p’ sound at the end of the world, sounding for all the world like they were completely relaxed, though Zolf could see the tension in their shoulders as they typed (the same sort of tension he had on nearly every mission), pulling up the optical scan of one of the lab technicians that they’d gotten in advance. After a second, the scanner by the door beeped, and the door swung open.

As the two of them passed through the door, Zolf lost sight of them completely, and he huffed out a breath. “Okay, keep in mind there aren’t any cameras in the lab. We’ve got no eyes on you.”

“Don’t worry,” Hamid said under his breath, just loud enough for the microphone to pick up, “I’ll describe it all in _excruciating detail_ so you don’t feel left out.”

Before Hamid could say anything more, however, Zolf heard him gasp. There came a quiet, “Holy shit,” from Grizzop and Vesseek leaned closer to the monitors, as though that could somehow remedy the lack of cameras in the room.

“What is it?” they prompted, when Hamid and Grizzop didn’t seem to be about to tell them on their own.

“I’d say it’s the… what did the brief call it? Simulacrum? It’s… It’s huge.” Hamid sounded almost breathless with shock, something like awe colouring his tone. “And it- it reminds me of Barrett’s tech again. The Simulacrum, and the other stuff. But… more advanced almost. Like the stuff Barrett had was the crude beginnings of _this_.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Grizzop said, the sounds of shuffling and quiet metal-on-metal getting picked up by his microphone, presumably as he went about attaching all the necessary charges to the Simulacra to shut it down. “We need to disable it. Who cares what it reminds you of?”

“If you pick up a small sample, Hamid, the specialists back at headquarters might be able to trace it back to a supplier.” He heard Hamid hum a quiet affirmative. 

Vesseek tapped Zolf’s shoulder, pointing to one of the monitors showing the feed from a nearby hallway. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

There were guards - at least twenty - converging on the lab. “Ah, shit. Company’s on the way, guys, you need to hurry. I’m counting twenty, maybe more.”

“I’m almost done. Hamid, come over here and give me a hand.”

A few seconds of silence from the other end of the line, then Vesseek said, “You’ve got two minutes at most. You need to get out of there.”

There was a quiet beep indicating that all the charges were in place on the Simulacrum’s chassis and ready to detonate. “Done.”

“Good, because you need to go _now_.” Zolf watched as the first of the guards got to the door, leaning down for the optical scan, only for the scanner to lock him out (at least that worked; it should buy them an extra few seconds). “They’re on top of you. There should be a door-” A thud on the lab door as four of the guards threw their weight against it (it was somewhat reinforced, but it wouldn’t hold up long against that, Zolf knew), “-on the far end of the lab. The hall outside that one looks clear.”

Saying it that way made it sound simple when it was anything but; the floor plans that Zolf had in front of him showed that the lab was huge, and laid out in a way that meant they wouldn’t be able to build up any speed as they made their way through. As it was, they weren’t able to get all the way across the room before the door gave, and a tidal wave of security flooded the room. He heard Grizzop and Hamid slide to a stop, and the thud of them hitting the ground just as the guards started firing.

Zolf took a deep breath (in, out) before he spoke, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “What’s going on?”

“We got behind a lab bench,” Hamid said, slightly out of breath, “about halfway across the lab. We’re pinned down, though; no way we move without getting hit. Got any ideas?”

“I might have one,” Vesseek said, tapping at the keyboard in front of them. Zolf glanced over to see what he was doing; accessing the charges detonation sequence.

“That could work. They should be far enough away.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” they said, pressing a few more keys before hovering their finger of the enter key. “Fire in the hole.”

The Simulacrum exploded, the noise of it momentarily drowning out anything that Hamid or Grizzop might have said for the next few seconds. Suddenly, Zolf spotted the two of them sprinting out of the lab through the back door. There weren’t any guards pursuing them yet, but it wouldn’t be long before the ones that hadn’t been close enough to the Simulacrum’s explosion collected themselves enough to come after them.

“Okay, at the next intersection turn,” he hurriedly checked the floor plan, “left. There should be a staircase on your right, take it down to the basement. You can leave the same way Grizzop came in.”

“Oh no,” Hamid said, trying his best to sound disappointed despite the breathlessness that came with running full tilt down the hallway toward the stairs. “My suit’s going to be ruined.”

Zolf chuckled despite himself (despite not wanting to encourage Hamid’s terrible jokes). “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get you a new one when you get back.”

* * *

They managed to get out of the building with no further problems, and were back at headquarters and debriefed within a few hours. Zolf saw that Hamid was about to leave, head back to his quarters to rest, so he grabbed his arm, tugging him in the opposite direction. 

“Zolf, what-”

Zolf shook his head. “Don’t. Just come with me.”

“O-Okay.”

It took about an hour to get Hamid out to the cabin; the one place Zolf was sure the conversation they needed to have would be secure. Hamid coughed slightly as they entered, the main room just as dusty as it had been the last time Zolf had been there. “Zolf?” he said questioningly, tilting his head slightly as he stared at him.

(Zolf could hear a lot of questions in that one word; why are we here, how did you know about this place, what’s going on?)

“Something’s wrong. In the agency.” Zolf paused, trying to figure out how best to say what he needed to. “When I tried to talk to Barrett, the agent I spoke to, he was… an old friend. Told me he was ordered not to let _anyone_ in to see him. That he didn’t know why. And the last op…”

“There was no way for them to know we were there,” Hamid agreed, nodding, “unless someone _told_ them.”

“Exactly. And I’m pretty sure, whatever’s going on, it’s connected to Barrett and the Simulacrum. But we’re still at a dead end, since you had to give all the samples to the agency.”

Hamid gave him a small, slightly embarrassed smile as he reached into one of his pockets (one Zolf hadn’t even realized was there) and pulled out a small, flat disk. “Not all of them.”

Zolf put a hand on Hamid’s shoulder then, after a moment of consideration, pulled him in for a hug. “Hamid, you’re brilliant!” He drew back just far enough to look him in the eye. “That’s perfect.”

Then, there was the sound of the door to the cabin being forced open, slamming against the wall hard. They pulled away from each other abruptly, both of their gazes snapping toward the source of the noise.

Zolf’s eyes widened as he saw who stood in the entrance to the cabin, framed in the doorway. “Shit.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected visitor, and some hasty explanations.

“Shit,” Zolf said from beside Hamid as they both stood frozen, having found themselves at the wrong end of Grizzop’s gun. “Grizzop, why are you- why are you here? And pointing a gun at us?”

“I think you know exactly why, Zolf. Because I saw you two rushing out of headquarters as soon as we finished debriefing, and I thought that was suspicious. So I followed you.” Grizzop’s eyes were narrowed as he spoke, staring the two of them down, as though he was daring them to make a move. “To a cabin in the middle of nowhere, one that I know _for a fact_ isn’t in any agency database. Where I see you with samples of tech that should have been turned in as soon as we got back. So I’m going to need you to explain what’s going on here.”

“Of course,” Hamid said quickly, “But maybe you could put away the gun? So we can talk?”

“Afraid not,” Grizzop replied, almost jovial in his denial. “Now, hurry up and start talking. I don’t have all the time in the world, and I need to know if I’m going to have to kill you both.”

“Grizzop, we- we’ve known each other for years,” Zolf started, sounding like he’d been thrown off balance by the threat, “you know I wouldn’t do anything that-”

Grizzop cut him off, “I don’t know that, actually. Because sneaking out here to conspire against the agency by selling samples of the very technology we’re trying to get _out _of people’s hands to wannabe supervillains isn’t what I would have expected from you, but it sure looks like it’s what you’re doing. So I’ll say it again, for the last time; explain what you’re doing here, and make it good, or I’ll have to kill you.”

Hamid fought down the spike of panic he felt, seeing Grizzop gesture at Zolf with his gun, urging him to get on with it. He knew it was fine; Grizzop was a good agent, a great one even, and that gun wouldn’t fire unless he didn’t want it to, but that thought wasn’t exactly reassuring at that moment (probably because Hamid was abruptly aware of how suspicious this little outing of theirs really was, and how little evidence he and Zolf had for their theories about the agency).

“Okay. Something’s… something’s up. Hamid and I, we’ve noticed some… odd things happening.” Zolf looked completely calm, as he spoke, except for the slight twitch of his right hand (which Hamid had learned meant he wanted to reach over and fidget with his ring; a nervous tic of his). It was something Hamid wouldn’t have noticed a couple months ago, but now he knew Zolf well (almost everyone has a tell, and Hamid had just been around him long enough to figure out what his was. That was it. No other reason). “Operations going south, even when there was no way for that to happen. Technology showing up places it shouldn’t be; tech that was only ever used by one person, and someone that the agency supposedly has in custody, at that. Stonewalling when we try to pursue leads about how or why the tech was there.” The twitch again, as Zolf paused, considering what to say next.

After a few seconds of silence, Grizzop started shifting from foot to foot, just slightly. Getting restless. So Hamid cut in, “Each of those things, on their own, wouldn’t be so suspicious. But all of them…” Hamid shrugged lightly as Grizzop’s gaze fell on him. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

Grizzop hesitated before he spoke, just for a moment, almost unnoticeable but there nonetheless (Hamid could only hope it was because he believed them, at least a little). “That’s a good story, and all, but do you have any evidence?” he asked, gaze flicking back and forth between the two of them. “I’m not just going to take your word for it.”

“And I know you better than to expect you to,” Zolf responded lightly (another twitch of the finger the only thing indicating that his calmness was a facade). Then he sighed, looking as though he was about to run a hand through his hair before abruptly remembering the gun still trained on him. “We don’t have evidence, exactly. Just a… gut feeling, I guess? But think about the last operation. There was no way for anyone in the building to realize that something was up, but they somehow found out anyway. And even if there was a way, there was no way for them to get that many guards ready and to the lab in that amount of time. Not unless they knew beforehand.” 

Grizzop narrowed his eyes further, making a ‘hm’ noise that Hamid took to mean, _I don’t think I believe you; that’s just circumstantial evidence, at best,_ so he continued on from where Zolf stopped. “That’s not the first time, either. It happened a couple months ago; a facility full of guards that seemed to know I was going to be there beforehand. I’m pretty sure you could get access to the mission reports, if you wanted.”

There was silence once more, as Grizzop simply stared at them, as though he could figure out whether they were telling the truth by their body language (and maybe he could, Hamid didn’t know. Grizzop _had _been at this whole spy thing for a lot longer than him). After a few minutes, he lowered the gun slowly, not taking his eyes off them as he did. “Say I believe you. Say I’ve… noticed some stuff too. What would we do about it?”

Hamid suppressed a relieved smile at that, relaxing a bit (though not entirely; he was far too well-trained for that) now that the gun wasn’t pointing at him. “Getting this sample analyzed would be our best bet, I think,” Hamid said, gesturing with the hand still holding said sample. “See if there’s any way to identify the supplier. But I’m not sure how we’re going to do that.”

“I might actually be able to help there,” Zolf interjected. “I know someone who could take a look, at least. Someone outside the agency.”

Grizzop nodded, finally holstering his gun. “I’ll see what I can dig up about our last op, see if it has anything in common with the other suspicious ones. Maybe that’ll help us find something else to look into.” He turned to the door, pulling it open, hesitating for a moment. “You really need to be less obvious, if you don’t want anyone finding out what you’re doing.” He glanced over his shoulder. “For two highly trained spies, you’re both terrible at being subtle.”

Hamid burst out laughing as the door swung shut behind Grizzop, looking over at Zolf. “We really were horribly conspicuous, weren’t we?”

Zolf started laughing too, loud and bright, with just a hint of relief (and really, it was unfair how beautiful his laugh sounded).

* * *

A few hours later, Zolf and Hamid were wandering the streets of London, making their way (by a somewhat roundabout route, for subtlety’s sake) to meet the mysterious person who Zolf insisted could help them figure out where the tech was coming from. And really, Hamid should have been paying more attention to the surrounding people (really, Hamid, you’re supposed to be a _spy_), but found himself somewhat distracted by the story Zolf was telling him about his antics pre-spyhood.

Which was probably why he didn’t notice the advertisements pasted up all around.

And probably why he didn’t see _her_. Not until he nearly ran into her, at least (thank God, Zolf was more observant than he was at the moment, tugging him out of the way). Honestly, he still probably wouldn’t have noticed her if it hadn’t been for what happened next.

“H-Hamid?” she said, in a voice that was so achingly familiar it hurt to hear.

Aziza.

Shit.

Hamid kept walking, pretending not to have heard her, and grabbed Zolf’s hand to drag him along. But she didn’t seem like she was about to quit, as he heard her call again from behind him, “Hamid!”

He was moving as quickly as he could without seeming like he was running away from her. He leaned toward Zolf, schooling his expression into one of adoration (which really wasn’t as hard as it should have been), trying to mask his panicked whisper as an affectionate gesture. “We need to disappear. _Now_.”

If there was one thing he appreciated about Zolf, it was how quickly he could leap into action when he needed to. Like right then; he didn’t ask any questions, just started scanning the area for things they could use. After about a minute more of walking (with Hamid suppressing a wince every time he heard Aziza calling after him) Zolf pulled him down another, much busier street. They melted into the crowd easily and, once they were certain Aziza had lost sight of them, ducked into the nearest shop.

Once inside, Hamid made his way to a spot near the front window; somewhere he could see what was going on outside, but no one would be able to see him (or, more specifically, _Aziza _wouldn’t be able to see him). Zolf stayed close by, pretending to idly browse a nearby case of what looked like jewelry (rings, maybe? Hamid wasn’t sure; he was far more occupied with scanning the street outside the shop).

It didn’t take long for him to find her, looking harried as she pushed through the crowd, sweeping her gaze frantically over the nearby people.

Looking for him.

The agency had convincingly faked his death, Hamid knew, though he hadn’t asked for any details (he didn’t want to know, he told himself every time he wondered. He didn’t want to know). So Aziza thought he was dead (or, from her perspective, _knew_ he was dead). That didn’t make it hurt any less when he noticed the tears running down her cheeks, or as he watched her wipe them away with the back of her hand as she finally gave up.

(He didn’t think there was anything that could make that hurt any less.)

Hamid turned back to Zolf once Aziza had disappeared, trying to wipe surreptitiously at his eyes with his sleeve (and failing, he was fairly certain, though Zolf didn’t comment on it). The look on Zolf’s face was… not quite pity, not really, but something close. Hamid hated it (he didn’t blame Zolf for it, not at all. He just hated being put in a situation where someone felt like they should pity him. He didn’t want it; it didn’t help, it never helped). 

“So, who was that?” Zolf asked, hushed so that his voice faded into the background noise provided by the other people in the shop (and the terrible music being played through the store’s speakers).

“My, uh-” Hamid cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump that had formed there at some point while he’d been watching Aziza. “My sister. Older sister. Aziza.”

“Oh, Hamid…” If Zolf hadn’t been looking at Hamid with pity before, he was then. But he also raised his arms a bit, a silent invitation, so Hamid didn’t focus on it. Instead, he leaned forward, letting Zolf hold him tight to his chest, wrapping his arms around him in return as he buried his face in Zolf’s shoulder.

They stayed there for a few minutes, Hamid and Zolf, in their own little corner of the shop, Zolf holding him until he felt like he was ready to face the world again (or at least until he felt okay enough to try).

* * *

The shop they eventually reached was… not messy, but crowded. There were shelves on every available inch of wall space and large tables throughout the room, taking up most of the floor (to the point that Hamid and Zolf were having some difficulty even entering the store proper, let alone making their way _through_ it). Each surface (barring the floor, thank God) was covered in an assortment of objects; some looked like pieces of scrap metal, some bits of technology that Hamid couldn’t identify the purpose of, and there were even some bottles of bright liquids that fit the fantasy idea of ‘potions’ almost perfectly.

So, needless to say, Hamid was a bit overwhelmed by it all. Zolf, on the other hand, seemed completely fine, gingerly making his way around the tables toward the counter at the back of the shop. Hamid tried to follow quickly, with some success; by the time they reached the counter, he was incredibly thankful for his quick reflexes (which had stopped more than one expensive looking bottle or piece of tech from being knocked off a table).

“Anyone home?” Zolf called out in the general direction of the door behind the desk.

The door flew open almost instantly, revealing a frazzled-looking person wearing goggles, their face covered in a layer of soot and hair blown backwards, like they’d just had something explode directly in front of them. “Zolf!” They rushed forward, around the counter, skidding to a stop in front of Zolf, tugging their goggles off as they went and tossing them behind them. They looked Zolf up and down, quickly, like they were checking him over for injuries. “You look different. What’s changed?”

Zolf chuckled quietly. “Nice to see you too, Cel.” The person - Cel - levelled him with an unimpressed look, so he continued. “It _has _been five years. I’m sure lots of things have changed.”

Cel gave a dismissive wave, their gaze still locked on Zolf (Hamid wouldn’t have been surprised if he discovered that they hadn’t even noticed him, at this point). “Well, yes, of course you’ve changed in five years. That’s not what I’m talking about. You look different. Shorter?”

Shaking his head, Zolf reached down to tug up the leg of his pants with one hand, revealing the beginnings of a prosthetic (a prosthetic that, despite working with him for _months_, Hamid had somehow never noticed). “Could this be it?”

Cel gasped, their eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Oh, that’s _beautiful_.” They leaned down, trying to get a better look at the small portion of it that Zolf had revealed, but he let go of his pant leg, letting it fall to cover the prosthetic once more.

“Yeah, well, you can look at it another time. Right now, I was hoping I could ask a favour.” He glanced over to Hamid as he said it and Hamid startled out of his reverie (how had he not _noticed_?), pulling the sample from his pocket. He held it out to Cel, who snatched it from him to hold up to the light. “Do you think you could figure out who made this?”

They hummed under their breath, turning the disk over in their hands. “Don’t know. I’ve got some tests I could run. Might help.” They walked back around the desk, gesturing for Zolf and Hamid to follow, and passed through the door into the back room.

The back of the store wasn’t any less messy than the front; if anything, it was actually a bit worse. Whereas the front could have been best described as organized chaos, the back was probably just… pure chaos. Bits and bobs littered every surface (including the floor, Hamid noted as he carefully avoided stepping on a small pile of rusted screws), anything from small pieces of scrap metal to complicated contraptions of wires and gears. Cel led them to a table near the back, unceremoniously pushing everything else on its surface onto the floor (despite the fact that the disk was not nearly large enough to warrant the amount of space they made for it).

“I hope you haven’t got any other appointments. This’ll take a while.”

* * *

Cel was not wrong about the amount of time it would take. They seemed like they had run about a million tests; anything from scraping a flake of metal off the disk to look at under a microscope, to pouring various chemicals over it. Hamid couldn’t tell what information any of the tests were giving them, but they seemed pleased with the results.

“This is really very promising. I’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities; this next test should get us down to one.” They dropped the disk into the pot of simmering water (combined with a lot of other chemicals Hamid hadn’t recognized). “Hopefully. But it’ll take a bit.” They turned away from the pot (as Hamid saw a particularly large bubble in the liquid pop over their shoulder) and sat down in a chair across the table from Hamid and Zolf.

Zolf looked restless, tapping his foot on the floor as Cel stared at him. “So, should we uh, leave and come back, or…”

“Oh, no, no, that won’t be necessary. Besides,” they leaned forward, their elbows on the table, “I want to talk. You haven’t come to see me in years, Zolf. How’ve you been?”

Zolf swallowed, his gaze skittering away from Cel, looking instead at the wall behind them. “I, uh, I’ve been… fine, I guess?” He shrugged, probably trying to look nonchalant (and failing, in Hamid’s opinion; he could still see his foot tapping away under the table). 

“Sure.” Cel bit their lip for a second, seemingly considering what to say next. “I’m. I’m sorry about Feryn. I, uh, I heard what happened. From Wilde.”

“I… Sorry, I should have told you myself, I just-”

“No, no,” they waved their hand dismissively. “I understand, I do. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. He was… He was good.”

Hamid shifted in his seat as he got the distinct impression that Cel had forgotten he was there (this was an awfully personal conversation to have in front of him, wasn’t it?). Cel must have noticed the movement, though, because they turned their gaze to him, looking like they were about to say something when they got cut off by a loud noise from behind them. The pot that the disk was in had started boiling violently.

Cel’s face lit up, and they whipped around to look at before rushing over and pulling it off the heat. They grabbed a pair of tongs off the table next to it, using them to reach into the pot and pull out the disk. The disk, which was now tinged purple. “Oh this is good,” they whispered under their breath, gently placing it on the table and pulling out a magnifying glass. They leaned down to examine it for a few moments before straightening up once more. “Okay, so I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news: I can’t tell you who exactly made this particular… whatever this thing is. Good news, though: I _can _tell you who gave them some materials for it.” They snatched a pen and a scrap of paper off another table, scribbled something down on it hastily, then gave it to Zolf.

“Thanks, Cel, you’re a lifesaver,” Zolf said as he stood from the table, Hamid following suit. “You can keep that thing, if you want it.”

Cel grinned at that, bouncing slightly on the balls of their feet as Hamid and Zolf made their way toward the door. Before they could get there, however, Cel piped up once more. “Do I get to know what all this was about?”

Zolf paused, glancing over his shoulder at them for a moment. “It’s probably best that you don’t.”

Zolf was still tense as they walked away from the shop, coiled so tightly Hamid was almost worried he’d snap. So, once they’d gotten a few blocks away, Hamid tugged at Zolf’s arm to pull him to a stop. “Hey. You okay?”

Zolf shrugged slightly. “I’m fine.” He tried to start walking again, but Hamid stood his ground, keeping a tight grip on his arm to hold him in place. Zolf sighed, deflating. “I will be fine. I just haven’t seen them since…” He trailed off, but Hamid knew what he meant.

“If you ever want to talk, Zolf-”

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted, giving Hamid a tired half-smile. “But thank you.”


	16. Bonus - Aziza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She could have sworn she saw him.

Aziza Hawaa al Tahan was fairly certain she was losing her mind. There was no other reason she could come up with for her thinking it was a good idea to rush after a complete stranger who just so happened to look like her little brother.

Not Ishak or Ismail - she wouldn’t have reacted so poorly if that were the case. No, she saw Hamid. She nearly _ ran into _ Hamid. Or someone who looked kind of like Hamid, at least.

Because Hamid was dead. She knew that. She’d gone home for the funeral, held Saira tight while they both cried, watched as they lowered the casket into the ground.

He was dead.

But she could have sworn she saw him. Just for a second, a moment, she was almost entirely convinced she had seen him.

It had taken her months to work herself up for this tour. It wasn’t usually this difficult for her; she loved performing, and she’d never dreaded going on tour before. But this one… It included a week of shows in London. The city where Hamid had been living. The city where Hamid had died. For months, every time she thought of going to London she’d burst into tears. But she’d worked on it, she’d grieved, and she’d finally felt ready. Then she _ saw him, _someone who looked like him, and suddenly she was back to square one.

The man hadn’t even looked the same as Hamid the last time she’d seen him, all those months ago. He’d been… less soft. Made of sharper angles than her brother had been; more muscled.

But still. He’d looked like her brother, at least a little. Enough that she’d run after him, trying desperately to catch up, despite knowing that it couldn’t possibly be him. Watching from a distance as he leaned into the man standing next to him, whispering affectionately in his ear, feeling an ache in her chest as she remembered that Hamid would never get to have that. He would never get to have someone to love, and someone who loved him in return, ever again.

Because he was dead.

She lost them in a crowd. She knew she must have looked strange to the people around her, tear tracks streaking her cheeks as she searched their faces frantically, hoping to find Hamid again. The man that looked like Hamid.

It wouldn’t help, she knew; seeing him again. Because he wasn’t Hamid, no matter how desperately she wished he was. Hamid was dead, and talking to that man wouldn’t change it. Nothing would change it.

Hamid was dead, and it didn’t matter how many strangers she saw that resembled him, because she would never see _ Hamid _ again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People wanted Aziza to be alive, so I delivered. But alive doesn't necessarily mean _happy_.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A warehouse, a contact, and a surprise guest.

So. Sending Hamid off to update Sasha and Azu about the situation (despite his many protests) while Zolf went off to meet with the supplier on his own might not have been his brightest idea. But it was the decision he’d made, and now, staring down the door of the isolated warehouse where the person Cel had said might be the supplier had requested to meet, it was far too late to change his mind.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t regret it, though.

Glancing at his watch, he realized that he couldn’t afford to waste anymore time lingering outside the warehouse; his contact had made it very clear that they wouldn’t tolerate him being late (they were incredibly busy, they insisted. He wasn’t sure he believed them, but he didn’t have much of a choice).

He stepped forward, about to reach out and rap his knuckles against the door, when it abruptly swung open, revealing a very tall figure, their features obscured by the shadow cast by the open door.

“Yes, yes, come in, come in.” They ushered him inside hurriedly, making an annoyed sound when he stopped in the doorway to examine the inside of the warehouse.

It was huge, was the first thing he noticed. The ceiling was easily 30 feet, the dimly lit room extending in all directions into the gloom, making it nearly impossible to figure out how big it actually was. The second thing he noticed was that it was nearly empty, with the exception of some large wooden crates scattered throughout it. There wasn’t nearly as much occupying the area as one would expect from a warehouse this large.

He didn’t like it.

In fact, he hated it. It was probably a trap; he wasn’t stupid enough to think otherwise. But it was their best (read: only) lead, he couldn’t just give it up because he had a _bad feeling_. He could manage, he was sure; he was a highly trained secret agent, after all.

He stepped into the warehouse, hearing the door click shut behind him. The figure marched off to the right, toward a door he hadn’t been able to see from the doorway.

“Come on, come on, I don’t have all day,” they said, their shrill voice almost deafeningly loud in the nearly silent building. “You’ll have to pardon the… emptiness. We’re in the process of moving to a new location. Most of the product has already been shipped. This way.” They pulled open the door, gesturing Zolf inside.

Through the door was a much smaller room; an office of some kind if Zolf were to guess, though it was hard to tell with the lights off. There were slightly off-kilter stacks of boxes along all the walls, and a desk near the back, facing the door.

A desk that, when the figure flipped the lightswitch on, was revealed to be occupied.

“Well, hello there,” the man sitting at the desk drawled.

Barrett.

Zolf tensed, immediately searching his surroundings for something to use (an unsteady stack of boxes to his left, a short length of pipe propped up against the wall a few feet away, his pistol still concealed under his coat that he wouldn’t even be able to reach for without one or both of them noticing). “Barrett. You’re supposed to be in custody.” Zolf tried to take a step back, only for his contact to grip his arm, almost painfully tight.

“Hm, well, things aren’t always as they seem, are they Mr. Smith?” Barrett stood slowly, taking his time as he moved around the desk to stand in front of him. “I have to admit, this is rather disappointing. I was rather hoping for Hamid or Sasha, but…” He leaned forward, bending down slightly to look Zolf in the eyes. “You’ll be an acceptable consolation prize, I think.” He smiled, something sharp and cruel in the twist of his lips, still mere inches from Zolf. So Zolf did the only thing he could think of; he headbutted him.

Barrett cried out, clutching at his now bloodied nose as he stumbled back. Taking advantage of his distraction, Zolf reached out with his free arm and sent the stack of boxes to his left toppling over, crashing down on top of the person holding him. They didn’t release their grip entirely, but it loosened enough that Zolf could tug his arm free, yanking open the door to the rest of the warehouse and rushing through it, slamming it shut behind him, cutting off the sound of Barrett’s furious shouts (“Get him, Ward, you useless-”). 

He pressed his back against the door, bracing it and in the process turning to look at the rest of the warehouse where he was faced with another unpleasant realization; it was not nearly as empty as he had thought. The large wooden crates that had been scattered around the room were no more. Instead, standing in their shattered remains were large humanoid robots. Simulacra. At least twenty, maybe more, all moving toward him.

Glancing toward the door he’d come in through, he saw exactly what he’d expected; two simulacra standing guard on either side of it (because of course, it couldn’t be that easy). The door jostled behind him, as though someone (likely his contact - Ward, it seemed their name was) had thrown their weight against it. 

Shit.

He had two options. One: try to get past the simulacra guarding the door. Not the best plan, considering that each of them was at least twice his size and, if he was remembering the information he was given about them in the last brief, at least three or four times stronger than him too. Two: go further into the warehouse and try to find another way out. He wasn’t particularly pleased with the prospect of that, either; sure, there might be another exit further along, and it was possible that there weren’t any simulacra blocking it yet. But he couldn’t be certain, and he hardly wanted to risk his survival on something _uncertain_. It seemed like he might not have a choice, though.

Oh well, better _some _chance than _no _chance.

Zolf glanced around, looking for something to bar the door with and, unfortunately, coming up empty. He’d just have to move quickly, then. However, one thing he _did_ see in his scan of the room was two simulacra. Well, a lot more than two, but two that weren’t behaving like the others; while most of them were moving to surround him, those two were moving in the opposite direction, further into the building. Presumably to block off another exit.

Zolf took a breath, steadying himself as the door jostled again, a frustrated noise coming from behind it. The simulacra were slow; if he could just dodge the ones heading for him, he might be able to move quick enough to get to the other exit before they did.

It was a slim chance, but it was the best one he had.

He waited a few more moments until Ward behind the door threw their weight into it again, then took off at a sprint (hoping that them being off-balance would buy him a few seconds before they realized he wasn’t blocking the door anymore).

He ran through the warehouse, putting as much distance between himself and each simulacrum as possible without it slowing him down, his footsteps loud and obvious compared to their even and regular ones. He caught up with the simulacra heading for the second door quickly, running an arcing path around them in order to stay out of their range as he continued down the length of the warehouse, slowing down slightly to scan the walls for whatever way out they were heading to block off. Behind him, he heard the office door slam open, followed by the sound of someone tumbling to the floor and some muttered profanity (very creative profanity, he had to give them that). He didn’t dare turn to look, even as he heard them scramble to their feet and start running after him.

To his right, a crate that he hadn’t noticed burst open, another simulacrum stepping out of the wreckage and reaching for him. Zolf ducked to avoid its grasp, taking the opportunity to grab a piece of the shattered crate. He thrust it into the side of the simulacra, in the seam between two pieces of metal, on the off chance that the brief had been wrong and there actually was a simple way to disable them without blowing them all to hell.

The brief was not wrong, and he had to jump sideways to avoid the piece of crate after the simulacrum pulled it out of its chassis and threw it at Zolf. He turned away from it and kept running, hearing its slow, clanging steps fade as he put some distance between himself and it.

“Now, just _what_ do you think you’re doing, Mr. Smith?” Barrett said smoothly, seemingly unconcerned (which was very, _very_ bad, if Zolf’s past experience with people like him was anything to go by).

He didn’t get long to consider what Barrett might be planning, however, as at just that moment he spotted the door, hidden away in a shadowed alcove to his left. He sprinted toward it, starkly aware of the sound of Ward quickly approaching (there were a lot of things that Zolf’s prosthetic was good at, but sprinting for extended periods of time was not one of them). He nearly made it, too.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” came Barrett’s voice again, accompanied by a sinister laugh (why was it that every so-called supervillain had the same goddamn laugh?) and a jolt of pain lancing up from his leg through the rest of his body. He cried out, stumbling and falling to his knees, his hands clawing at the prosthetic desperately, as though that could stop his nerve endings from feeling like they’d been lit on fire.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Zolf knew that he shouldn’t stop running, that he needed to keep going, to get away. He knew that it was Barrett who was causing the agony - the sound of his smug laughter from across the warehouse was more than enough of an indicator of that - and if he got far enough away the pain would probably stop, but he just couldn’t get his body to cooperate, with so much of him thoroughly occupied with frantically trying to _make the pain stop make it stop please stop please._

It didn’t take long for Ward to catch up with him, curled on the floor as he was, and start dragging him back toward Barrett. He didn’t even try to resist. Couldn’t, his prosthetic completely unresponsive even as the pain finally subsided enough for him to breathe again. His entire body felt numb from it, sluggish and heavy; he couldn’t have broken Ward’s hold on him even if he’d tried, didn’t even have enough strength to grab his gun.

“A feisty one, isn’t he?” he heard Barrett say, his tone mocking, though distant and muffled, like Zolf was hearing it from underwater. Barrett gripped Zolf’s chin, forcing him to look up at him. “This is going to be fun.”

“Fuck you,” Zolf responded, putting as much venom into the words as he possibly could.

Barrett simply laughed, loud and unrestrained, and held up his hand. He was holding something, a small black box with some sort of switch on one side. Zolf didn’t get much more time to examine it in more detail, however, as Barrett flicked it on and the pain began again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, the progression of Ward's name:  
Squizzard --> Squid --> Squidward --> Ward


	18. Bonus - Partial Decrypted Message Archive from the Communicator of Zolf Smith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The encryption on Zolf’s communicator may be good, but Barrett’s hackers are better.

Ten Months Ago

** _Hamid, 5:07 pm:_ ** _ Zolf, I think we need to talk. Can we meet?_

** _Zolf, 5:07 pm: _ ** _Sure. Meeting Room 7C in an hour?_

** _Hamid, 5:08 pm:_ ** _ See you then_

* * *

Nine Months Ago

** _Zolf, 8:24 am: _ ** _We’ve got an assignment. Briefing in 30 mins._

** _Hamid, 8:26 am: _ ** _7C?_

** _Zolf, 8:27 am: _ ** _Yep_

** _Zolf, 8:27 am: _ ** _Don’t be late this time_

** _Hamid, 8:29 am: _ ** _That was one time!_

** _Zolf, 8:30 am: _ ** _That’s one time too many_

** _Hamid, 8:30 am: _ ** _Rude :(_

* * *

Seven Months Ago

** _Hamid, 11:47 pm:_ ** _ I wanted to say thank you, again, for what you did tonight._

** _Zolf, 11:48 pm: _ ** _It wasn’t a problem_

** _Hamid, 11:50 pm:_ ** _ I’m pretty sure it was against protocol._

** _Zolf, 11:50 pm: _ ** _Yeah, well_

** _Zolf, 11:51 pm: _ ** _Just don’t mention it, alright?_

** _Hamid, 11:51 pm: _ ** _I won’t._

** _Hamid, 11:51 pm:_ ** _ But seriously, thank you. You don’t know what it meant to me, seeing that they were okay._

** _Zolf, 11:52 pm: _ ** _You’re welcome, then_

** _Zolf, 11:52 pm: _ ** _I_

** _Zolf, 11:52 pm: _ ** _I know what it’s like to miss someone_

** _Zolf, 11:52 pm: _ ** _So I’m glad I could help_

** _Zolf, 11:53 pm: _ ** _Even a bit_

** _Hamid, 11:53 pm:_ ** _ More than just a bit_

* * *

Six Months Ago

** _Hamid, 12:03 pm:_ ** _ I’m bored :(_

** _Hamid, 12:03 pm:_ ** _ It feels like it’s been ages since we’ve had an assignment_

** _Zolf, 12:04 pm: _ ** _It’s been a month_

** _Zolf, 12:04 pm: _ ** _That’s not that long_

** _Hamid, 12:04 pm:_ ** _ That doesn’t stop me being bored, though, does it?_

** _Zolf, 12:05 pm: _ ** _Do you want me to come by and keep you company?_

** _Hamid, 12:05 pm:_ ** _ Yes, please :)_

** _Zolf, 12:06 pm: _ ** _Fine. I’ll be there in ten. _

** _Hamid, 12:06 pm:_ ** _ <3_

** _Zolf, 12:07 pm: _ ** _What’s that?_

** _Hamid, 12:07 pm: _ ** _What’s what?_

** _Zolf, 12:07 pm: _ ** _<3?_

** _Hamid, 12:07 pm: _ ** _A heart?_

** _Zolf, 12:08 pm: _ ** _Oh, I see it now_

** _Zolf, 12:08 pm: _ ** _Why do you always do that? Send those… symbols._

** _Hamid, 12:09 pm: _ ** _These communicators don’t have proper emojis_

** _Zolf, 12:09 pm: _ ** _What’s an emoji?_

** _Hamid, 12:10 pm:_ ** _ Are you joking?_

** _Zolf, 12:11 pm: _ ** _No? What would I be joking about?_

** _Hamid, 12:11 pm:_ ** _ You seriously don’t know what an emoji is?_

** _Zolf, 12:11 pm: _ ** _No. Should I?_

** _Hamid, 12:12 pm: _ ** _You better hurry up and get here so I can teach you what an emoji is._

* * *

Four Months Ago

** _Hamid, 3:29 pm:_ ** _ Hey_

** _Hamid, 3:29 pm: _ ** _So I’m not dead._

** _Hamid, 3:29 pm:_ ** _ I told Sasha about the tech. She said she wants to help_

** _Hamid, 3:30 pm:_ ** _ Let me know when you’re done with the interrogation. We can discuss how it went_

** _Hamid, 4:51 pm:_ ** _ Zolf?_

** _Hamid, 5:37 pm: _ ** _Do interrogations usually take this long_

** _Hamid, 6:16 pm:_ ** _ Are you okay?_

** _Hamid, 6:16 pm:_ ** _ I don’t want to be pushy, but I’m getting worried, here_

** _7:48 pm: _ ** _Something came up. I’ll come to your quarters at noon tomorrow to discuss_

* * *

Three Months Ago

** _Hamid, 1:19 am:_ ** _ u nkow, zolf, ur pretty great_

** _Hamid, 1:20 am:_ ** _ ur a great coordinatro_

** _Hamid, 1:20 am:_ ** _ ur a great friend_

** _Zolf, 1:21 am: _ ** _Everything okay over there?_

** _Hamid, 1:22 am:_ ** _ everythings GREAT_

** _Hamid, 1:22 am: _ ** _im having a great night_

** _Zolf, 1:23 am: _ ** _You’re a bit drunk, aren’t you?_

** _Hamid, 1:23 am: _ ** _maybe_

** _Hamid, 1:23 am:_ ** _ not by myself_

** _Hamid, 1:24 am:_ ** _ with sasha_

** _Hamid, 1:24 am:_ ** _ and azu_

** _Zolf, 1:25 am: _ ** _Did you let Sasha convince you to go drink for drink again?_

** _Hamid, 1:26 am: _ ** _yeah_

** _Hamid, 1:27 am:_ ** _ whcih was probably a bad idea_

** _Zolf, 1:29 am: _ ** _I thought you learned that lesson last time._

** _Zolf, 1:30 am: _ ** _What did you call it? The ‘Hangover of the Century’?_

** _Hamid, 1:32 am:_ ** _ dont be mean :(_

** _Hamid, 1:32 am:_ ** _ i was being nice_

** _Hamid, 1:32 am:_ ** _ telling you how much i appriciate u_

** _Hamid, 1:33 am:_ ** _ and this is how u treat me_

** _Zolf, 1:34 am: _ ** _Thank you, then._

** _Zolf, 1:34 am: _ ** _I appreciate you, too._

** _Zolf, 1:35 am: _ ** _Now drink some water and go to bed._

** _Hamid, 1:36 am:_ ** _ :(_

** _Zolf, 1:37am: _ ** _Hamid..._

** _Hamid, 1:39 am:_ ** _ fine_

** _Hamid, 1:40 am:_ ** _ good night zolf_

** _Zolf, 1:41 am: _ ** _Good night. Sleep well._

** _Hamid, 9:03 am: _ ** _I think I might be dying_

** _Zolf, 9:04 am: _ ** _I warned you_

** _Hamid, 9:05 am: _ ** _What, I don’t get any sympathy?_

** _Zolf, 9:07 am: _ ** _Nope_

** _Zolf, 9:08 am: _ ** _This pain is entirely on you_

** _Hamid, 9:10 am:_ ** _ You’re so mean_

** _Zolf, 9:10 am: _ ** _:)_

** _Hamid, 9:12 am:_ ** _ Oh my god I can’t even be properly mad because you USED AN EMOJI_

** _Hamid, 9:12 am:_ ** _ You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you??_

** _Zolf, 9:14 am: _ ** _;)_

* * *

Yesterday

** _Hamid, 4:47 pm: _ ** _Could you come by my quarters?_

** _Hamid, 4:47 pm:_ ** _ I mean, only if you’ve got a minute_

** _Hamid, 4:48 pm:_ ** _ You don’t have to, of course_

** _Zolf, 4:49 pm: _ ** _I’ll be there in ten._

** _Zolf, 4:49 pm: _ ** _Everything okay?_

** _Hamid, 4:50 pm: _ ** _Everything’s fine_

** _Hamid, 4:50 pm:_ ** _ I’m just having a bit of trouble with my tie, is all_

** _Zolf, 4:51 pm: _ ** _Ah._

** _Zolf, 4:51 pm:_ ** _ I see._

** _Zolf, 4:51 pm: _ ** _I’ll be there soon._

** _Hamid, 4:52 pm:_ ** _ Thanks, Zolf_

** _Zolf, 4:53 pm: _ ** _No problem._

* * *

Today

** _Zolf, 10:02 am: _ ** _The warehouse did not lead anywhere._

** _Zolf, 10:02 am: _ ** _Meet me at the attached location in five hours._


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Zolf, 10:02am:** _The warehouse did not lead anywhere._  
**Zolf, 10:02am:** _Meet me at the attached location in five hours._

Something was wrong. Hamid didn’t know exactly what, or how it had happened, but somehow, something had gone horribly wrong.

He didn’t know why he’d ever agreed to let Zolf go meet the supplier on his own. They’d both known it could be an ambush, had known it had the potential to go extremely badly, and as confident in Zolf’s abilities as an agent as Hamid was, he never should have gone along with any plan that involved Zolf going into a situation like that without backup.

Stupid, so stupid.

But the point was moot, anyway. Something had happened, and whoever had sent Hamid those messages wasn’t Zolf. They didn’t even seem like they were _trying_ to be a convincing Zolf, which told Hamid two things.

One: they weren’t expecting Hamid to believe the ruse. They may even be depending on Hamid not falling for it.

Two: the location they sent was a trap, but not one they thought Hamid would fall into. They would be ready for him, whatever he did.

Or so they believed. Because Hamid had one advantage they were likely unaware of: backup.

It hadn’t been easy, getting the others out of headquarters without raising any suspicion (trying to get four people out of a highly secured facility in short order didn’t lend itself to subtlety, after all), but Hamid was fairly confident he’d managed. And if he hadn’t… well, there wasn’t much to be done about it. Either the agency knew they were onto them, or they didn’t, it didn’t really matter (their absence could only go unnoticed for a while, in any case, so the agency would figure it out eventually). What mattered was getting Zolf back, although Hamid was at a bit of a loss as to how. So really, it was fortunate that he wasn’t alone.

Well, that he hadn’t been alone _before_. He was alone _now_, but that was part of the plan.

“Zolf?” he called, pushing open the door of the building the coordinates led him to. “Are you here?” He walked through the doorway, gritting his teeth as he forced himself _not _to look like he was suspicious, to go against all his instincts (the feeling of _wrong, wrong, something’s wrong_, insisting he turn back, get the others) and wander into the building alone.

The door abruptly swung shut behind him, the sound of a deadbolt sliding home startling him out of his reverie.

“Well, well, look who we have here,” came a distinct drawl, one that Hamid recognized vividly, from the shadows on the other side of the room.

“Barrett,” Hamid responded coolly, turning slightly to face him as he stepped forward, closer to Hamid.

“I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to fall for our trap so…” Barrett paused, stroking his chin (could he get any _more _stereotypically villainous?), “easily. Perhaps I overestimated your abilities.” 

Hamid didn’t deign that with a response, instead silently skirting the edge of the room, moving closer to where Barrett stood. His silence didn’t seem to discourage Barrett, however, as he continued. “Or perhaps you’re just useless, without your precious _Zolf _here to tell you what to do, hmm?” Hamid felt himself tense at Zolf’s name, stalling in his movement toward Barrett, whose pensive expression morphed into a grin when he noticed Hamid’s reaction. “Don’t like me mentioning Zolf, do you? Or was it the dig at your own abilities?” He gave Hamid a considering look, eyes narrowing. “No, I don’t think so. You seem the kind to be… confident in yourself, no matter how misplaced that confidence may be.”

“What do you want?” Hamid said through gritted teeth.

“What makes you think I want anything?” Hamid gave a derisive snort, and Barrett’s grin widened further. “Fair, fair. Let me… rephrase that, then. What makes you think I want anything more than this? To watch you squirm as you realize you’re entirely helpless, entirely incapable of doing anything to reclaim your friend from my… clutches, shall we say? And unable to do anything to escape from them yourself.”

Hamid shook his head, resuming his movement toward Barrett, no longer skirting the wall but heading directly toward him (slowly moving his hand toward the pistol concealed under his jacket).

“I really thought you’d be more talkative,” Barrett said, almost conversationally, eyes locked on Hamid as he reached into his pocket for… _something_. “I mean, all your messages to Zolf gave me the impression you would be. I’m a little underwhelmed, honestly.”

Hamid let out something that could only be described as a growl, his hand settling on his pistol’s grip and drawing it from the holster.

Barrett clicked his tongue, sounding disappointed. “Now, now, Hamid. Here I was thinking we could have a civil conversation.” He sighed heavily, pulling a small, silver tube from his pocket. “Oh, well. C’est la vie.” 

He abruptly flicked the device toward Hamid, and a long, barbed, silver wire extended from the tip. Hamid threw himself sideways, away from it, tucking his head to land in a roll and bounce back to his feet, his pistol still trained on Barrett.

Barrett tsked, the wire retracting as he pressed a button on the cylinder. “There’s really no need for you to make this any more difficult than it has to be.”

Hamid glared at him, taking another step forward. “What have you done with Zolf?”

“I assure you, your Zolf is perfectly fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well,” Barrett said with a shrug, “not _perfectly_ fine, I suppose. But fine enough. If you put the gun down, I’ll even take you to see him.”

“I think not,” Hamid responded as he stepped forward again.

(Almost there. Almost close enough.)

“My apologies, I’m afraid I’ve given you the wrong idea. You see, you seem to be under the impression that you have a choice.” Barrett flicked his wrist once more, and Hamid angled his body, just enough for the wire to sail past his shoulder, before rushing forward and tackling Barrett to the ground. Barrett made a sound of frustration, shoving Hamid off of him before he could fire the gun pressed to his sternum.

(Perfect)

Barrett started to scramble to his feet, backing away from where Hamid lay, gun trained on his head.

(It would be _so easy_ to kill him. Just one squeeze of the trigger, one more horrible person gone. Revenge, finally, for what he’d done to Sasha, for what he and his people were surely doing to Zolf.)

(It would be so _easy_.)

Hamid took a steadying breath, adjusted his aim, and fired.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf was having a very, _very_ bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning: this chapter contains some descriptions of torture (brief, but descriptions nonetheless) and a dead body. Both descriptions are fairly short and superficial, but if that's something that bothers you, the endnotes of this chapter will describe where to stop and start reading to avoid those sections, as well as a summary of any important information gathered during them.

Zolf awoke with a gasp, eyes snapping open, then almost instantly closing once more, the bright light of the room making his head throb with dull pain. Slowly, he opened them again, bit by bit, letting them adjust as the ache subsided. He shifted, trying to move his arms, his one functional leg (the prosthetic hanging, entirely useless, from where it joined to his thigh), but found he couldn’t. Looking down, he could see ropes securing him to the chair upon which he sat. They were uncomfortably tight, but not enough that he’d lost feeling in his hands or foot. He tugged against them experimentally, feeling for any give, but found none.

“Ah, good to see you’re finally awake,” came a voice from behind him. He tried to turn toward it, only to groan in pain as something sharp dug into his temple at the movement. “I wouldn’t try to move if I were you, dear agent. It won’t end well.” Footsteps echoed through the room, circling the chair Zolf was secured to slowly, almost leisurely.

Zolf hated them already.

A gloved finger trailed down his arm, following the path of one of his scars, the person themself remaining out of his field of vision. “You and I are going to have so much fun, Mr. Smith.”

“Seems like you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage here.”

“Good point, my dear, good point. Let me rectify that.” More footsteps, as the figure finally made their way to stand in front of Zolf. He was a man, tall and thin, wearing a white lab coat (with small, rust-brown stains near the cuffs) and nitrile gloves. He grinned at Zolf, his teeth shockingly bright in the white lights. “You can call me Kafka.”

“Is that your name?”

“It’s what you can call me, Mr. Smith,” he said as he turned and pressed a button on a nearby wall panel, causing a tray to slide out from the wall.

“That’s not an answer.”

Kafka looked back to him, his grin still fixed firmly in place, though starting to look slightly strained at the edges. “You know what they say about gift horses, Mr. Smith.”

“Fine. Then answer me this: where are we?”

Kafka tutted, turning back to the wall. “You know as well as I do that I won’t tell you that.” He made a satisfied noise, plucking a thin silver implement from the tray, and moved back to stand in front of Zolf. “Now, Mr. Smith, let me explain what’s about to happen. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer them.”

“And if I don’t?”

Leaning forward, Kafka ran the implement lightly down Zolf’s arm, following the same path his finger had, and Zolf bit his tongue to suppress a hiss as blood began to well up from the paper-thin cut it left behind. His grin grew sharp as he spoke again. 

“You will.”

* * *

There were very few situations in which Zolf was glad to lose consciousness, this being one of them. He shouldn’t be, he knew that; unconscious meant defenseless, after all. But he’d been awake, in near-excruciating pain, for what felt like hours, and he couldn’t help but relish the reprieve. It wasn’t as though he was getting any closer to figuring out how to escape anyway, occupied as he was.

So needless to say, returning to the waking world was not something he was particularly happy about.

He opened his eyes, squinting at the light, holding back a groan as his instinctual shifting in an attempt to make himself more comfortable in the chair, caused sharp jolts of pain from his injuries.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Zolf.”

Zolf felt himself tense involuntarily at that familiar drawl, his eyes darting immediately to the place Barrett stood, a smug smile on his lips. “Barrett.” His voice was raspy, rough from screaming, and speaking felt like he was rubbing his throat with sandpaper.

“That is my name, yes,” Barrett responded, condescension clear in his tone. “How are you feeling, Zolf? Any more talkative?”

“You wish.”

Barrett’s expression hardened instantly. “Zolf. I’m certain you understand the… gravity of your situation.” He moved closer, leaning down to look Zolf directly in the eye. “I don’t need you. I have other ways to obtain the information I want. Getting it from you just seemed the simplest. But if you don’t cooperate,” he straightened, looking down his nose at Zolf, “I will not hesitate to dispose of you.”

Zolf set his jaw, doing his best to give an intimidating glare despite his current situation - bound almost to the point of complete immobility, bloodied and bruised, with absolutely no leverage to speak of. 

“Then why haven’t you done it yet? I’ve already made it clear, I’m not telling you anything.”

At this, Barrett gave Zolf a grin. “Why, Zolf, because I like you, so I’ve decided I’ll give you one last chance to tell me what you know.” He stepped away, reaching back to pull a syringe filled with a dark blue liquid from the tray at the wall. “Now, I’m afraid this is going to hurt. Quite a lot, really. And as long as you refuse to answer my questions, it will keep hurting. If you agree to answer them, however…”

“Just get it over with,” Zolf snapped, cutting him off.

Barrett just chuckled, seemingly unbothered by Zolf’s brusqueness. “You’ll come to regret your eagerness, Zolf.” He bent down once more, pulling the cover off the needle. “Do relax. You won’t be able to in just a moment.”

Zolf had a passing amount of medical knowledge, enough for some basic first aid, and a few more drastic measures should he need them, but he was by no means an expert. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he would have been able to identify whatever it was in the syringe if he _ was_, and certainly not after it was injected, and his veins began to burn. It was agony, white-hot pain coursing through his entire body, making him scream, thrash violently in his bonds, the only part of him remaining still the prosthetic, still hanging deactivated and useless from his leg.

He felt like he was dying and, after mere moments, even began to wish that he would, began to wish for something, anything to stop the pain.

Except-

No. Not _ anything. _

“How did you discover the identity of our supplier?” Barrett asked, standing straight once more.

“No,” Zolf responded between panting breaths, teeth gritted, even as he continued to struggle against the ropes, even as every breath sent another wave of pain through him.

“Who else knows of your suspicions?” Barrett growled, his mounting anger evident.

“No.” Zolf’s skin felt like it was on fire, even the brush of his clothes against him was near-intolerable.

“Tell me, and the pain will end.”

“Never,” Zolf responded, even as his vision began to darken around the edges, Barrett’s form becoming blurred as the pain grew overwhelming.

Barrett’s fists were clenched at his sides, knuckles white with tension. “Tell me what you know, or I will kill you.”

“Go to hell,” he spat through gritted teeth.

With a roar of frustration, Barrett turned, slamming his fist into the tray, upending the contents over the floor. He stared at the mess for a moment, obviously seething, before stalking out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him.

Within moments, the darkness finally overcame Zolf’s vision, and he let himself sink into blissful unconsciousness once more.

* * *

Zolf was already awake when his opportunity finally arose. Had been for what felt like hours, alone in his cell, trying desperately to find some way, any way, to escape before Barrett came back, before he finally killed him. Then-

A jolt of pain, milder than any other he’d felt in the past few days, like electricity arcing from his leg throughout the rest of his body. And strangely enough, relief, not because the pain was mild, but because the pain was there at all. After all, it was the same feeling he’d experienced the first time his prosthetic had powered up. 

Barrett’s thugs hadn’t bothered to secure his prosthetic to the chair, given its deactivated state, and implements from the tray were still scattered over the floor. It was stupid, overconfident, and quite frankly sloppy.

Zolf had never been more thankful for someone being sloppy.

He tried to move his leg, extending the prosthetic toward the nearest knife, laying on the floor half a foot away. It was slow going, the mechanisms grinding, sending more shocks through him, but slowly, ever so slowly, it worked. He pulled the blade closer, using the toe of the boot on his other foot to push the button on the prosthetic’s heel, hearing the distinct hum of the magnet in the sole activating, using it to grasp the knife.

Within minutes, Zolf had cut himself free of his bonds, only staggering slightly as he stood, the feeling slowly returning to his other leg.

It was time to get to work.

The door was less of a challenge than he’d thought it would be, he simply had to pop the cover off the handprint scanner, sever a wire, and the door slid open on its own. After taking a moment to grab one of the knives off the floor, and to check that the hallway was clear, he started down it, wincing as his prosthetic scraped slightly along the floor, less responsive than he was used to.

It was luck, really, that only a handful of doors down from his cell Zolf found what was obviously a security station. The room was dark, a lone guard sitting in front of a desk, lit only by the screens displaying camera feeds from around the building, covering the far wall nearly floor to ceiling. He crept forward, trying to be as quiet as possible, gripping the knife he’d taken from his cell tightly. Strangely, however, the guard didn’t twitch (even as the mechanisms in his prosthetic made a grinding noise, painfully loud in the silence of the room), remaining slumped slightly over the desk, staring at the feeds. But Zolf wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he moved closer, until he stood directly behind the figure.

As odd as it was, he didn’t think there was anything overly concerning going on until he put the knife against the guard’s neck, prepared to hiss a warning about being quiet if they wanted to live, and they still didn’t twitch. He stepped back, brows furrowed, grabbing the arm of the chair to spin it toward him as he did so.

The guard was dead, that much was obvious. The front of their shirt was stained a dark red, a small hole in it where the bullet had gone through, and Zolf was sure if he looked at the back of the chair he’d find the bullet lodged in it. Touching their skin revealed that it was still warm; they hadn’t been dead long.

He didn’t have any time to consider the implications of the discovery, however, as at that moment all hell broke loose. The lights in the room abruptly switched on, bathing it in a dull red glow, and an almost deafeningly loud alarm began to blare. A moment later, a voice came from outside the door.

“Andrew, the prisoner’s loose. Can you see ‘im?”

Zolf froze, adjusting his grip on the knife as he prepared for the inevitable fight, when another voice rang out from behind him. “West hallway, fifth floor.”

The sound of heavy footsteps receded slowly into the distance as the guard presumably headed for the west hallway and Zolf whipped around, searching for the source of the voice. But there was no one else in the room, aside from him and the dead guard, no easily visible devices on or underneath the desk, no hidden speakers as far as he could tell.

Absolutely nothing.

What the hell was going on?

He supposed it didn’t matter, in any case, it seemed like most of the guards in the building were heading for the hallway ‘Andrew’ had told them he was in. He wasn’t going to get a better chance than this.

A quick check of the monitors told him where the nearest exit was. Grabbing the gun from the holster hidden under the body’s jacket, he headed for the door of the room.

(Behind him, though he didn’t see it, there was a brief flicker of movement, not unlike a shadow.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid the description of torture, stop reading at_'He bent down once more, pulling the cover off the needle. “Do relax. You won’t be able to in just a moment.”'_ and start again at the next page break. During this section, Barrett asks Zolf a couple of questions, as follows: How did you know the identity of our supplier?, Who else knows of your suspicions?. Zolf refuses to answer any of them. Barrett becomes enraged and upends the tray of implements over the floor before storming out of the room (without cleaning any of them up). Zolf then passes out from the pain.
> 
> To avoid the description of the dead body, stop reading at _' He stepped back, brows furrowed, grabbing the arm of the chair to spin it toward him as he did so.'_ and start again at _'He didn’t have any time to consider the implications of the discovery, however, as at that moment all hell broke loose.'_ During this paragraph, Zolf realizes that they had been shot once, and that they hadn't been dead for very long.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamid was going to get Zolf back. He had to.

“I just- I don’t understand,” Hamid said, running his fingers through his already thoroughly mussed hair. “That can’t be the right location, it doesn’t make sense.”

Veseek just shrugged, looking nonplussed. “The signal hasn’t left the building in almost twenty-four hours, Hamid, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Maybe he found the tracker, ditched it there to throw us off.”

“If he’d just left it, it’d be stationary,” Veseek countered.

“A trap, then.”

“He already tried that once, Hamid,” Sasha interjected, “and you nearly killed him. He’s not stupid enough to try that again.” She paused thoughtfully. “Almost that stupid, but not quite.”

“But how? How could they have a base in central London, right under the agency’s nose?” The question was rhetorical, really. Hamid knew exactly how, had suspected something was wrong within the agency for long enough, and this realization that Barrett and his lackeys had a base in such a conspicuous location only served as further proof.

The agency was corrupt; they had to be. At best, they simply tolerated Barrett’s presence, like a ceasefire (one that only seemed to apply on one side, given how many agents Barrett had killed), at worst… Hamid didn’t even want to think about it. Didn’t want to consider the possibility that the agency, the group he had given up everything to join because he’d thought they did good, thought they helped people, was actively working with an inarguably evil man.

It was clear the others thought the same, as none of them deemed his question worthy of a response, instead turning back to the monitor, to the blip of the tracker’s signal.

“At the very least,” Sasha said, “that’s a stronghold or something. And unless he just killed Zolf and ditched him somewhere,” Hamid’s breath hitched at that, and Azu laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “that’ll be where they’re keeping ‘im.”

“I’m sure he’s still alive,” Azu said, giving him a light squeeze. “We’ll get him back.”

They were going to get Zolf back; they had to.

(Hamid didn’t know what he’d do if they didn’t.)

* * *

“For the record, I hate this,” came Veseek’s voice through their earpieces as they crawled through the sewers below the building. “I feel like I’m flying blind.”

“We know,” Grizzop responded, fondness clear in his tone. “But we didn’t have much of a choice, did we? Not like we have access to agency records.”

“We could have,” Veseek said sullenly. “I’m sure I could have hacked the system without them finding out.”

“It wasn’t worth the risk,” Hamid interrupted. “Now quiet, you two. We’re here.”

Here, being the maintenance hatch that would get them into the building, if the maps of the sewers they’d managed to get from the city’s databases were to be believed. 

“Everyone remembers the plan?” Hamid asked as he crouched down to inspect the lock. A padlock, at first glance, but Hamid knew better. The illusion shimmered as he ran a gloved finger down the front of the lock, then flickered out completely as he pried the small chip off the front, revealing a miniature fingerprint scanner. Much, much more advanced than the city would have bothered with, if this were simply a hatch leading to a maintenance duct.

“Azu and I’ll look for the nearest computer bank, see what information we can get about Barrett’s operations, while you and Sasha try to find wherever they’re holding Zolf,” said Grizzop, sounding slightly exasperated. “If possible, we meet back here on the way out. If not, we find our way back to the pre-designated rendezvous.” He paused, patting Hamid’s back lightly. “We know what we’re doing, Hamid. We’ll get him out.”

Hamid glanced up at him for a moment, giving him a small smile, before turning his attention back to the lock. He pulled a tube of gel out of his pocket, spreading some over the scanner. Within seconds the red indicator at the top flashed green, and the lock popped open with a click. He straightened up, slipping the tube back into his pocket as he turned to face Azu and Grizzop. “Good luck, guys. See you on the other side.”

* * *

Turned out, getting Veseek into the building’s security systems was simple; all it required was the incapacitation of the single guard manning the basement security desk (the butt of Hamid’s gun to the temple took care of that), and a few keystrokes from Grizzop to bypass the firewalls, and Veseek had full access (and, subsequently, full control). No access to the security cameras - the room wasn’t equipped for that - but better than nothing.

From there, Veseek’s directions made it blessedly easy to find the cell where they’d been holding Zolf, it being the only occupied cell in the entire building. The halls were near-deserted, the sterile white walls lined with enough bare and empty rooms that, even when a guard _did _come down the hallway, all they had to do was duck into one of them and wait it out. At least, until one of the rooms they ducked into was also apparently the destination of said guard they were trying to avoid. 

It was easy enough to knock him out; all it took was Sasha tripping him on his way into the room, and him falling into the corner of the table. Really, he did most of the work for them in that regard.

But it was too easy. Of course, that meant it wouldn’t stay that way.

Within seconds of the guard falling unconscious, a shrill beep emanated from a device that had fallen from his left hand. 

“Damn it,” Sasha muttered. “A dead man’s switch.”

Before she could say anything else, an alarm began to blare, almost deafening in the enclosed space. 

Sasha grabbed his shoulder, leaning down to speak into his ear. “You need to go. Find Zolf. I’ll draw away the guards.”

“Sasha-”

She just levelled him with a look. “Go.” Then, before he could do anything to stop her, she opened the door, ducking out in the opposite direction to where Zolf’s cell was located.

It looked like he didn’t have a choice.

* * *

There were bloodstains on the floor surrounding the chair in the centre of Zolf’s cell, and knives, syringes, and a variety of other things that were obviously meant as torture implements scattered about the room. Both of these observations were secondary in Hamid’s mind, however, to one simple fact: the room was empty. Zolf wasn’t there.

Hamid was trying his hardest not to panic. There were any number of explanations for his absence, after all. Perhaps he’d heard the alarms blaring and had taken the opportunity to escape, or he’d been moved to another cell and the digital records hadn’t been updated yet.

(Or, perhaps he’d refused to give Barrett what he’d wanted and he’d killed Zolf for it.)

He scanned the room, looking for anything that would tell him where Zolf had gone. There was a pile of rope on the floor, frayed in a way that suggested someone had sawed through it, not cut cleanly (a point for Zolf escaping, certainly). There was also a slight smear in the bloodstain, though whether that was from Zolf or someone else, Hamid couldn’t tell. And just beyond that, a trail of scrape marks, like metal had been dragged across the tiled floor, leading directly to the door.

Perfect.

It was simple enough to follow the marks once he’d seen them. They weren’t obvious, not by a longshot, but they were distinct enough once Hamid knew what he was looking for. They turned left outside the cell, continuing down the hallway with only a brief divergence into a security station, clearly heading for one of the exits. 

Hamid had to fight the urge to run, to forgo all semblance of stealth in favour of getting to Zolf as quickly as possible. He was no good to either of them dead, he knew, and sprinting down the hallways like that was a recipe for getting shot by one of the guards. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier, didn’t make it any less painful when he noticed the way the marks veered sideways into the wall, like Zolf had stumbled into it.

He followed the trail for what felt like hours, though he knew it was probably closer to a few minutes, as it continued through the twists and turns of the building, until finally, _finally_, up ahead he saw-

“Zolf,” he whispered. Because there he was, moving slowly down the hall a few metres ahead of him, his prosthetic scraping across the floor, seemingly unresponsive. Hamid glanced around, making sure there weren’t any guards approaching, then broke into a sprint. 

Zolf whipped around at the noise, the pistol in his hand pointed at Hamid for just a moment before he let it fall back to his side. “Hamid?”

Hamid covered the distance quickly, skidding to a stop in front of Zolf only seconds later. “Zolf,” he said again, then threw his arms around Zolf’s neck with such force that Zolf stumbled, nearly sending them both to the ground.

Zolf’s arms wrap around Hamid in return, squeezing just as tightly, as though Hamid was the one who’d gotten taken and not the other way around. “Hamid, you’re here. H-how-”

Hamid cut him off, “Well, I wasn’t about to let them keep you, was I?” Zolf chuckled, squeezing him even tighter for a moment before they both pulled back. “We need to go.”

With a nod, Zolf released his grip on Hamid entirely, then gestured behind him. “The nearest exit’s that way. Unless you have a different way out?”

Hamid paused, considering backtracking to the sewers, before the sound of heavy boots coming closer from down a nearby hallway made the decision for him. He and Zolf locked eyes briefly before they both turned in unison to head toward the exit Zolf had been headed for.

As they moved, Zolf’s arm over Hamid’s shoulders to compensate for the obvious lack of responsiveness of his leg, Hamid took a moment to look Zolf over. He didn’t seem to have any serious injuries, though a quick glance at his arm showed that it was covered in dried blood and littered with long and thin, but deep, cuts, though they no longer seemed to be bleeding. Hamid didn’t even want to think about the amount of pain Zolf must have been in when those were inflicted.

He forced himself to focus; they weren’t in the clear yet, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. “Veseek?”

“Yeah, Hamid?” they responded.

“I’ve found Zolf. We’re heading out of the building. How are the others doing?”

“They’re almost done. I’ll let them know.” They paused, then sighed. “Tell him I’m glad he’s alright. We’ll see him soon. Be careful.”

“We will.” He glanced up at Zolf. “Veseek’s glad you’re okay. The others will be too once they tell them.”

“The others?” Zolf asked as they continued down the hall.

“Azu, Grizzop, and Sasha.”

“Good,” Zolf said, sounding relieved. “I’m glad you got them out.”

Before Hamid could respond, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer, and-

“Freeze. Both of you.”

He and Zolf stopped, mere feet away from the door that would lead out of the building.

“Put your hands up, then turn around, nice and slow.” They did as they were told, turning to see a guard, grinning viciously, his gun trained on Hamid. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? No, you,” he said, gesturing briefly to Zolf before shifting his aim back to Hamid, “and your friend aren’t going anywhere.”

Suddenly, Zolf’s leg appeared to give out, making him stumble sideways into him, leaning into him for a brief second before he straightened up once more. Just a second, but long enough for him to whisper into Hamid’s ear, “Distract him.”

That was something Hamid was quite good at, if he did say so himself. “What makes you think that?” he asked, raising one eyebrow at the guard.

He scoffed, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got you at gunpoint.”

“That hardly means anything,” Hamid retorted. 

“I’m pretty sure,” the guard responded, gesturing with his gun once again, his gaze locked on Hamid, “that means I hold all the cards here. I could-”

A gunshot reverberated through the hallway and the guard fell, his gun skittering away. Whether or not he was dead, Hamid wasn’t sure, and if he were being honest, he’d admit he didn’t particularly care. He turned to Zolf, grabbing his hand to get him to sling his arm around Hamid's shoulders again, and started moving toward the door. 

“Nice shot,” Hamid said with a grin.

Zolf chuckled, squeezing Hamid for a second before releasing him. “Why thank you.”

Hamid pulled open the exit door and the two of them emerged into a darkened alley. Looking around, Hamid realized that they were only a few blocks away from the sewer entrance he and the others had used to get into the building. He started to guide Zolf out of the alley, intending to take a slightly roundabout route to the rendezvous, but Zolf stopped him.

“We need to take a detour,” Zolf said as he tugged Hamid in the opposite direction to where he’d been intending to go, exiting the alley at the opposite end. Hamid started to ask what was going on, but Zolf cut him off. “I need to ditch the prosthetic. It’s useless now anyway, and they might have bugged it.”

Zolf continued to lead them through the streets, both away from Barrett’s base, and away from the rendezvous (thanks to a few suggestions from Hamid), for a few more minutes before pulling Hamid to a stop on an abandoned street, just outside a bookstore that looked like it had gone out of business years ago. He leaned down, tearing the material of his trousers at the knee, just above where his prosthetic began. Hamid crouched down to help him, and within a minute the two of them had successfully detached the prosthetic.

While Zolf leaned against the wall, tying off the leg of his trousers to cover up the very obviously technologically advanced socket at the end of his thigh, Hamid tucked the prosthetic behind a nearby trash bin. Then he returned to Zolf, who put his arm back over Hamid’s shoulders, and the two of them set off toward the rendezvous.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than anything, Zolf is just glad to see his friends again.

The others were already gathered at the rendezvous by the time Zolf and Hamid got there. Not that Zolf was surprised, with how far out of their way he’d taken them to ditch his prosthetic. It did mean that, within moments of his arrival, the others were on him, surrounding him on all sides in what could only be described as a hybrid between a group hug and a cuddle pile. It was the safest he’d felt in days, and he could feel his eyes threatening to tear up as the others held onto him as tightly as they could, like they’d never let go.

“It is so good to see you safe, Zolf,” Azu said, and the rest of the group made affirmative noises.

Zolf smiled, shifting just enough to free his arms and wrap them around the people nearest him, who happened to be Azu and Sasha, and hug them back. “Good to see you guys, too.” 

It really, really was. Because they were here, and that meant they’d come for him, come to save him (not that he ever doubted that they would). And, even more, it meant that they were safely out of the agency’s reach, at least for the moment.

They’d have to disentangle themselves eventually, Zolf knew. They’d have to leave, get somewhere secure so they could discuss their next steps. But for now… For now, he simply let himself be held.

* * *

Zolf really hadn’t thought it through when he’d suggested they make their way back to the cabin from the rendezvous before they started discussing anything that had happened in Barrett’s base. In theory, the idea was a good one; it was much less likely that they’d be overheard there, given that it would only be them, so they could speak freely without having to dance around anything. The problem was that there were six of them now, and Zolf had never before realized just how small a room could feel with that many people in it, especially in the little one-room cabin.

He didn’t mind it too much, though. After everything that he’d just been through (everything he was trying very, very hard not to think about), there was something reassuring about being surrounded so closely by the people he trusted, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable. Something reassuring about the arm Azu periodically slung around his shoulders, the way that Sasha kept brushing against him like she wanted to make sure he was really there, how Grizzop and Veseek grinned at him every time he glanced over to them, and Hamid’s refusal to let Zolf out of his sight. 

He’d missed them.

Of course, the peace that he’d felt upon getting to the cabin could never last. Not when Azu and Grizzop began to explain what they’d found in Barrett’s base.

Unredacted mission briefs and reports, including those for the two missions of his and Hamid’s that had gone south so spectacularly. Personnel records for all active field agents, along with more than a few coordinators. Blueprints for a variety of agency technology, including Zolf’s prosthetic. Building layouts for the agency’s headquarters in London, Istanbul, Moscow, and who knew how many others they hadn’t managed to download before they’d needed to scarper. And, worst of all, encrypted messages sent between Barrett’s lackeys and unknown individuals that Veseek said were probably involved in the agency’s leadership given the kind of encryption that was used.

Zolf felt like he was going to be sick, hearing them describe it all. Beside him, Sasha was tense, wound so tight she looked nearly ready to snap. On his other side, Hamid had moved closer, shaking like a leaf at the confirmation that the group he’d given up everything to join was corrupt. Zolf tugged him closer, pulling him into a one-armed embrace as he raised his free arm for Sasha to tuck herself under if she wished (which she did, going to show just how badly shaken she was by the news).

And despite how horrible the realization was that the agency that his brother had died for wasn’t what he’d thought, as he sat with his arms around two of the people he cared about most, with the rest gathered around him… he felt hopeful. 

They would figure it out. They would fix it. He didn’t know how yet, didn’t even have the slightest inklings of a plan, but that didn’t matter; he knew they would do it.

They had to.

* * *

It had been three days since they’d gotten to the cabin, and Zolf was going a bit stir-crazy. He knew he wasn’t the only one; Grizzop had taken to pacing the length of the cabin almost constantly until Veseek had finally gotten exasperated enough to drag him outside. Azu and Sasha weren’t much better, though they were quieter about it, choosing instead to take a lot of long walks through the trees around the cabin and, in Sasha’s case, to disappear among them for a few hours at a time.

Zolf had it a bit worse than the rest of them, though. Given that he’d had to ditch his prosthetic, and the fact that the cabin didn’t have anything even close to resembling a crutch, if Zolf wanted to go anywhere beyond the confines of the cabin, he needed someone else’s help. And while he appreciated everyone’s willingness to assist the few times he’d gotten up the nerve to ask them to help him outside, he was getting rather sick of it. Thankfully, the solution was simple; he needed a new prosthetic, and he knew exactly who he could get it from. 

The only issue would be convincing the others to let him out of their sights. Or, more specifically, convincing Hamid. Hamid who one time, upon waking up from a nap to find that Zolf wasn’t in the cabin, nearly descended into an anxious spiral that had only been prevented by Azu physically dragging him outside to see that Zolf was wandering near the edge of the trees with Sasha (who’d bet Zolf that she could carry him on her back for an hour without breaking a sweat).

(She’d won the bet.)

And look, Zolf understood why Hamid was so worried, he really did, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a bit… smothering at times. Which was why, he thought, it would be good if he went alone. It would remind Hamid that, although he’d gotten taken once, he wasn’t completely incapable of taking care of himself. 

Hamid didn’t seem to see it the same way, however.

“Is that really a good idea?” he asked again, for the fifth time since Zolf had brought up going to get Cel to make him a new leg. “I mean-”

“I know what you mean, Hamid. But it’s fine, I’ll be fine. It’s not a long trip, and Cel’s well-equipped to handle anything that comes their way.”

Hamid huffed a sigh, sitting down heavily on the couch next to Zolf. “But-”

“I can handle myself.”

Hamid turned toward him, giving him a pleading look. “Please, I just- It’s only been a few days, Zolf.” He looked down at his hands where they sat on his lap. “I know you can take care of yourself, of course I do, but I just… can’t. Not yet.” His hands clenched into fists, knuckles turning white, and Zolf wanted nothing more than to take them in his own, to ease the tension out of them. He wanted to pull him closer, press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, still turned downward into a frown, and-

Oh.

_Oh._

_Oh, no._

Zolf crossed his arms over his chest, restraining himself from acting on those impulses (stopping himself from making a horrible mistake, making Hamid uncomfortable, damaging their relationship irreparably). “Fine, you can come. But… Hamid, I need you to understand, even without the prosthetic I’m- I’m not helpless. I’ve managed by myself without it before, and I could do it again.”

Hamid nodded, somberly. “I know you’re not, Zolf. I’m sorry I made you feel like I thought you were. I…” Hamid trailed off, biting his lip. “I was, am, worried about you. You were-”

Zolf cut him off, shaking his head. “I know. Thank you, Hamid.”

With a smile, Hamid reached forward to pull him into a tight hug, Zolf barely uncrossing his arms quickly enough to wrap them around Hamid’s waist in return. With a contented sigh, Hamid relaxed into Zolf’s hold, and Zolf’s heartbeat stuttered for a moment before returning to a normal, if not a bit faster than usual, rhythm.

He was so screwed.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf was acting strange, and Hamid wasn't sure why.

Zolf was acting strange, and Hamid couldn’t help but think it was because of him. He didn’t know why exactly, or what he’d done, but it was fairly obvious it was his fault. Why else would Zolf keep pulling away from him, shrugging off Hamid’s touch in a way he hadn’t done even a few hours before?

So, to say that the trip Cel’s was awkward was an understatement. Uncomfortable silences followed by even more uncomfortable attempts at conversation (mostly initiated by Hamid), followed by more uncomfortable silences. Hamid just wished he knew what he’d done, so he could try to fix it. As it was, he kept circling back to the same worry, over and over: _ did I make him uncomfortable with how clingy I was?_

It would make sense, as much as he hoped it wasn’t the case. Zolf had gotten accustomed to Hamid’s affection, verbal or otherwise, months ago. Even after they’d gotten him back from Barrett, he hadn’t flinched away from Hamid’s touch. But, a few hours before they’d left to go see Cel, Zolf had started acting weird, and the only thing that had changed was that Hamid had let Zolf see just how… affected he was by Zolf being taken. Obviously it had made him uncomfortable, so he was drawing back as a way to tell Hamid that. Which was fine, if that was the case; Hamid would happily tone it down if it made Zolf more comfortable. 

Hamid just wished Zolf would have _told_ him. 

He’d ask Zolf about it later, see what he could do to make up for whatever he’d done. For the moment, however, they were much too busy trying to be inconspicuous on their trip to Cel’s shop for Hamid to be too focused on the issue. It wasn’t particularly hard, making sure they both went unnoticed - they were both highly trained, after all - but still, better to be safe than sorry.

When they arrived, they found Cel’s shop to be just as chaotic as the last time they’d been there, though them entering through the back door meant that Hamid at least didn’t have to worry about dodging around the many expensive-looking contraptions he knew were scattered throughout the storefront. Cel themself didn’t seem overly surprised to see them in the store's backroom either, simply waving their hand in a gesture clearly meaning _be quiet for a second while I finish this_, still leaning over a bright purple liquid Hamid couldn’t identify. 

After a few minutes, the large bubble that had been forming in the centre of the liquid popped with a startlingly loud bang, and Cel straightened up, clapping their hands as they turned to face Hamid and Zolf. 

“Hey! Sorry for making you wait, I’d just been doing this experiment for a while, y’know? I’ve been trying to analyze the behavioural properties of this solution for a long time, and it hasn’t really been working out. Apparently, it doesn’t boil until about 200 degrees Celsius, which I didn’t realize, and doesn’t really make much sense when you consider its chemical properties…” At that, the volume of their voice fell as they began to mutter to themself, starting to turn back to the bubbling liquid before their eyes landed on the walking stick Zolf was using to prop himself up. They froze, their gaze darting back and forth between the stick, Zolf’s face, and the conspicuous absence of Zolf’s left leg below the knee. Before they could say anything, however, Zolf spoke again.

“Yeah,” he said, gesturing to his leg, “this is… why we’re here. I need a new leg and, well, who better to make one for me than you?” Hamid saw Zolf tense slightly as he spoke, like he was bracing for Cel to refuse, even though that made no sense from what Hamid knew of them.

“Oh, wonderful!” they responded, clapping their hands together once more. “I mean, not wonderful that you need a new one, of course not, but that I get to make the next one. It’ll be so _fun_. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to do a- a passion project! How d'you lose the last one, anyway?” They turned toward the table, swiping up a tape measure that had been sitting on its surface and striding toward Zolf.

Zolf relaxed, obviously relieved that Cel had agreed to help, though why he’d been at all worried they wouldn’t, Hamid wasn’t sure. After all, they were Zolf’s friend, and they clearly had enough technical know-how to do it if Zolf felt comfortable asking them at all.

“It’s, uh, a long story,” Zolf said, and Hamid winced at the reminder of what had happened only days before. 

“Well,” Cel responded, kneeling down to measure the distance from where Zolf’s leg ended to the floor, “you’ll have plenty of time to tell me, if you want anything even close to as advanced as your last one looked. It’ll take me…” They paused, still kneeling, muttering something under their breath, before continuing, “At least two days. Maybe more, if you’ve got anything special you want me to add. I’ve actually got a few ideas of my own about that! I could put in some sort of weapon, maybe? A poisoned blade, or something like that? I’ve got some quite interesting poisons here in the shop, ones that do all kinds of interesting things! I’ve got one where, at low doses, all it does is make your hair fall out…” They stood, striding purposefully toward a cabinet on the other side of the shop, gesturing for Zolf to follow as they carried on talking.

As Zolf and Cel wandered across the shop, Cel still rambling on about the effects of the various poisons that they had ‘lying around’, Hamid found his attention drifting to Zolf. He looked… happy. Content, and more at ease than he’d been all day, even as Cel explained that at high doses one of the poisons could make someone feel as though they were walking on hot coals until it finally killed them.

He just… he just hoped that, whatever he’d done to make Zolf so uncomfortable around him, whether it was how clingy he’d been or something else, he’d be able to fix it. He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t.

* * *

They’d decided to stay with Cel for a few days, while they worked on Zolf’s prosthetic. The less time they spent in transit, the less likely they were to be seen and recognized by someone who would report back to the agency, after all. It was logical, it made sense, and Hamid was completely on board with the idea. 

That was, until now.

“I don’t really get all that many guests, you know. I think it might possibly have something to do with the number of explosions? So, anyway, I’ve only got the one guestroom. You don’t mind sharing, do you?”

Hamid and Zolf had, of course, agreed. They were partners, they were comfortable with each other (Zolf’s present behaviour notwithstanding). Hell, they’d had to share rooms on missions before, so it wasn’t like they weren’t used to it.

Hamid just hadn’t realized that, when Cel said _share_, they meant…

Well. Hamid hadn’t realized that they meant he and Zolf would have to share a bed, was all.

It was fine. It would be fine, even if Zolf had been… distant lately. They were adults, they could deal with it. He and Zolf would talk, Zolf would tell him what he’d done wrong, Hamid would fix it, and they could go back to normal. He was sure of it.

That surety lasted until the moment he stood, in the nightclothes Cel had lent him (which were far, far too big, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to complain), staring at the lone bed in the centre of the room, contemplating all the decisions he’d made that led him to this very moment.

The thing was, he shouldn’t have been this nervous; it was just Zolf, after all. Zolf was his best friend, he could handle sharing a bed with him, he knew he could. What he didn’t know was why, every time he so much as glanced at the bed, his heart rate suddenly picked up to a mile a minute.

“You sure you’re okay with this, Hamid?” Hamid nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Zolf’s voice from the doorway. “I could- I saw a couch in the main room, I could sleep out there if that’d make you more comfortable.”

Hamid spun around to face Zolf, who was already halfway out of the room, apparently having decided that Hamid was not, in fact, okay with this arrangement. “No!” he near-shouted, feeling his pulse speed up for an entirely different reason at the prospect of Zolf being out of his sight. “No, it’s fine, Zolf. I’d, uh-” _rather you not be somewhere I can’t see you, given everything that’s happened,_ he wanted to say, but he stopped himself. He’d already made Zolf uncomfortable with his clinginess, he didn’t need to make it any worse. “I’m fine. Besides, I’m sure that couch wouldn’t do your back any favours.”

Zolf stared at him for a few moments longer, gauging his sincerity, then shrugged lightly and reentered the room, closing the door behind him. “Uh, do you have a preference? For what side of the bed you want.”

“Not really.”

“Alright, then.”

With that, they both went to bed, settling down facing opposite directions, with as much space as they could manage between them. The atmosphere was tense, unsure, as they lay there in complete silence. 

Hamid hated it.

“Zolf?” he whispered, as quiet as he could in case Zolf had already fallen asleep.

“Yeah?”

“I…” He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. I know I was being… clingy, and I’ll try to tone it down.”

Behind him, Hamid heard Zolf shift, and a hand landed on his shoulder. “Hamid, I’m not- I’m not uncomfortable.”

Hamid turned over as well, finding himself face to face with Zolf, much closer than he’d expected him to be. “You don’t have to- to lie. It’s fine, I overstepped, I get it-”

“You didn’t,” Zolf responded, cutting him off. “You didn’t overstep, you didn’t make me uncomfortable. This- if I’ve seemed off, that’s on me, not you. I promise.” He squeezed Hamid’s shoulder for a second before withdrawing his hand.

“Okay, I’m- I’m glad to hear it. But you know I’m here if you need to talk. About anything.”

“I know.”

With that, Zolf turned over, which Hamid took as his queue to do the same. 

It was fine. He and Zolf were fine.

So why didn’t it feel like they were?

* * *

When Hamid woke up what couldn’t have been more than a couple hours later, he couldn’t immediately identify what had woken him. The room was still silent, the lights were still off, and even the sounds of small explosions that had been emanating from Cel’s laboratory when he’d gone to bed had stopped. But then he heard it.

“_Feryn._”

Zolf’s voice was strangled, hoarse, like Zolf had been screaming at the top of his lungs even as the word came out as quiet as a whisper. It was immediately followed by a whimper as Zolf twitched, his leg thrashing out far enough that he kicked Hamid.

A nightmare. 

This was hardly the first time Hamid had been present for one, or even the first time one had woken him up. That didn’t make his heart hurt any less when he heard Zolf call Feryn’s name again, followed by more murmured words Hamid couldn’t discern. If there was one thing that could be said to be a benefit of Hamid’s extensive experience with Zolf’s nightmares, however, it was that he knew what to do when they happened. Or, more specifically, what _not _to do. 

Hamid sat up, leaning over Zolf to gently extricate him from the sheets that had tangled around him from his thrashing. He did it carefully, making sure not to touch him, or do anything else that would wake him up. Because, as painful as it was to watch him like this, waking Zolf was not the best course of action.

At least this way he tended not to remember the nightmares.

He’d woken him up, once, the first time he’d witnessed one of Zolf’s nightmares. He’d panicked, not knowing what to do, thinking that maybe, if he woke him, he wouldn’t suffer as much. In reality, all he’d done was cause Zolf to have a panic attack the moment he awoke, and ensure he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep for the rest of the night. Needless to say, he’d learned his lesson about waking Zolf during a nightmare.

Having made sure Zolf wouldn’t be able to accidentally strangle himself in his sleep, Hamid sat back on his side of the bed, his back against the headboard. There was no chance of him getting back to sleep until the nightmare was over, anyway, so there was no point trying.

It progressed as it usually did, Zolf alternating between violent thrashing and unnerving stillness, whimpered words and utter silence, Feryn’s name and ‘please’ and ‘don’t’ interspersed throughout. Everything Hamid had learned to expect when the nightmares came.

Then, something different:

“_Hamid_.” Zolf sounded… shattered, his voice breaking over the syllables, tears trailing down his cheeks. “Hamid, no, _please_.”

Hamid’s heart broke as he listened, wrapping his arms around his knees almost painfully tight as he restrained himself from reaching out, waking him up (because it wouldn’t help, it never did, but something about hearing Zolf say his name so _brokenly_ made it so much worse). If Hamid could just touch him, do something to reassure Zolf that he was fine, that he was here… But he couldn’t, he knew; Zolf didn’t sleep deeply at the best of times, and any touch bore the risk of waking him and making the situation worse. So instead, he sat, staring at Zolf’s silhouette in the darkness, flinching at every broken word.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the nightmare subsided, Zolf’s whimpers fading until he fell back into a peaceful slumber (the tear-tracks still staining his cheeks).

It took Hamid a very long time to go back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is curious, the poison that Cel’s talking about is Thallium! In low doses, it can cause hair loss, but it also causes peripheral nerve damage, which is what makes people feel like they’re walking on hot coals.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some conversations that just need to be had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to writing this chapter for so long, guys, you don't even know. Just a warning, though, it does get a little heavy in the middle, so just make sure you're taking care of yourselves.

Zolf was pretty sure he’d had another nightmare last night. He didn’t remember it, which wasn’t unusual; he never remembered his nightmares, with the exception of the one memorable time Hamid had woken him during the middle of one (which he didn’t blame him for doing, considering that he hadn’t warned him about them ahead of time). But still, he could usually tell fairly reliably when he’d had one thanks to Hamid’s tendency to walk on eggshells around him for at least the first few hours of the next morning. Not consciously, Zolf didn’t think, but it was a pattern of behaviour he’d noticed, nonetheless. He didn’t resent Hamid for it, especially since he’d heard from some of the others that his nightmares could be… less than pleasant for people who happened to be in the room at the time. It was completely understandable. Zolf just wished that it didn’t involve Hamid maintaining a careful distance between the two of them for the entire morning.

The distance never used to bother him, was the thing, not until he’d started having these feelings (feelings which he was carefully refusing to name, like that would make them go away faster). Now, though, all the little things Hamid did - deliberately avoiding any physical contact when they passed each other in Cel’s cramped kitchen, curling as far from Zolf as he could on the couch when Zolf sat down next to him, ducking out of the way when Zolf had to reach past him to grab something off the counter for Cel in their lab - felt like the worst kind of rejection, even though he knew that they weren’t. Hamid was trying to be considerate; it wasn’t his fault that he was going about it in entirely the wrong way. 

He should talk to Hamid about it, he knew, should explain that he didn’t need space after a nightmare, that he didn’t even remember them, and that, if he were being completely honest, the thing he wanted most was for Hamid to be as close to him as possible. But he didn’t, because that was far, far too close to the truth that Zolf was trying so desperately to keep from him, too close to those stubbornly unnamed feelings.

At least this time Cel was around, so he could distract himself from the ache in his chest that re-emerged with every effort Hamid made to give him space. And beyond that, it was just nice to see them again for more than a few minutes. He’d forgotten how passionate they got when they really got into a project, how happy they were to explain any complex ideas or concepts, how giddy they got when someone actually put in the effort to understand what they were talking about for more than a few minutes at a time; all those little things that he’d always loved about them. So, he helped them around the lab, as much as it was possible for him to help, as they worked on his new prosthetic. Mostly it was just holding things for them or screwing in the occasional bolt while Cel held the pieces in place, though they frequently asked for his input about the many ideas for gadgets that they could include (he’d had to talk them out of adding any explosives to it, much to their disappointment). They asked no shortage of questions about what Zolf had been up to since the last time they’d talked but didn’t push the issue if Zolf didn’t want to answer. It was fun, and it reminded him why the two of them had gotten on so well before.

And if he spotted Hamid popping into the lab only to leave just as quickly, well, it didn’t take long for Cel to distract him from that too.

Dinner that night was far more awkward than it had any right to be, the three of them seated around Cel’s - admittedly too-small - kitchen table, eating a soup that Zolf had managed to make with the… interesting assortment of ingredients he’d been able to find in the cupboards. It should have been fine; Hamid and Cel had seemed to get along well enough from what Zolf had seen of the two of them together. And yet, the atmosphere was strained, tension practically radiating from Hamid where he sat, resolutely staring into the bowl in front of him, only glancing up momentarily whenever Zolf or Cel spoke to him directly.

It didn’t make sense; Hamid had never been this weird around Zolf for this long the day after a nightmare. So that couldn’t be what the problem was; Zolf had obviously done something else that made Hamid uncomfortable, probably during the night. During dinner, with Cel there, wasn’t the time to ask him about it, though, so Zolf didn’t. But, as he and Cel headed back toward the lab after Hamid waved them off with an awkward ‘you clearly want to get back to work, I’ll be fine on my own’, Zolf decided that if Hamid still seemed off when they were about to head to bed, he’d ask about it.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, whatever issue was making Hamid act the way he was didn’t miraculously resolve itself by that night. So, before Zolf knew it, he was sitting, tense as a bowstring, on the edge of the bed, waiting for Hamid to emerge from the bathroom so they could talk. Which he did, after what both felt like an age and far too soon.

Zolf’s position on the bed, twisting the hem of his nightshirt in his hands, must have made a concerning picture, because the moment Hamid entered the bedroom, he gave him a worried look. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m pretty sure I should be the one asking you that,” Zolf responded. “You’ve been acting weird today. Is everything okay?”

“I- yes, of course,” Hamid said, sounding startled at Zolf’s bluntness. Zolf made a noise of disbelief and Hamid sighed. “I’m really fine, Zolf, I promise. I’ve just- I’ve been thinking.”

Normally, Zolf would respond to that with a joke but, right then, as Hamid moved across the room to sit on the bed next to him, he stayed silent, waiting for Hamid to continue. “You and Cel. You’ve known each other for a long time?”

“Yeah,” Zolf replied, confused. “I guess? We haven’t talked since- you know, but we were good friends before that. As good of friends as anyone in the agency can be with someone outside it, I suppose.”

“I could tell. You’re very comfortable with each other.” He paused, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I was just- I was listening to you guys, how familiar you are, all the- the inside jokes you have and I guess I just realized that I don’t really… know all that much about you. We’re friends, of course we are, but I don’t- you’ve never told me anything about you from before I joined the agency.” Zolf took a breath, ready to respond, though he didn’t really know what he intended to say, but Hamid shook his head, cutting him off. “You don’t need to tell me, I’m not- I’m not saying that. I just came to that realization, is all, and I wanted to give you two some time.”

“Hamid-”

“It’s really fine, Zolf. I’ll be fine, I’m sorry I was acting off.”

Zolf reached over, laying his hand on top of Hamid’s where it rested on the bed and squeezing (stubbornly ignoring the surge in anxiety the action triggered, reminding himself that this was a friend thing, that friends can give each other affection, that he and Hamid did all the time). “Hamid, I- Do you want to know how my brother died?”

“What? No, Zolf, you don’t have to-”

“I want to. I want you to know.” He really did. He wanted Hamid to know it all. He wanted him to know how Feryn died, to know all the ways it was Zolf’s fault, to know that he could have stopped it if he’d just been _better_. He wanted to tell him, in case Hamid thought his mistakes were unforgivable, because at least then he would _know_. At least then he could stop himself before he got any more invested in this, in _them_, than he already was (as if he wasn’t already in too deep for it to make a difference). 

He needed to know if Hamid would hate him for it.

“Are you sure?” Hamid asked, his tone uncertain. Zolf nodded, not trusting his voice not to betray the anxiety he felt at the idea of Hamid rejecting him once all was said and done. “Okay. If you want to tell me, then okay.”

* * *

_Wilde and Feryn were one of the best teams that the agency had ever seen. Despite the random chance that had led them to be assigned as such, they just… fit. A perfect match; reliable, effective, efficient. They were the kind of team that most of the other partnerships in the agency dreamed of being._

_So needless to say, when Zolf had been assigned to work with them for the foreseeable future, the transition had been… difficult. Not for Feryn, no; Feryn was ecstatic that his little brother was finally old enough to work in the field, and having him somewhere he could keep an eye on him was an added bonus. And though Wilde and Zolf didn’t always get along, Wilde was close enough to Feryn at that point that when Feryn made him promise not to antagonize Zolf too much, he actually took it to heart._

_But it was a difficult transition for Zolf._

_He’d been working with a coordinator by the name of Samael, who’d actually gotten old enough to retire (a rarity for people in their line of work) meaning that, abruptly, Zolf needed a new coordinator. There weren’t any available at the time of Samael’s retirement, however (the lack of planning on the part of the agency would have annoyed him, if not for how pleased he was that Samael had been able to retire at all), so he had to be paired with another agent temporarily. Zolf didn’t know whose idea it was for him to work with Feryn in the field, or why (maybe they thought they would work well together, given that they trained together for such a long time), but he really, really wished that they hadn’t._

_He loved his brother, he really did, and Feryn obviously loved him too, but there was something about working with him and Wilde that made Zolf feel like he was intruding (despite Feryn’s repeated insistence otherwise)._

_Like the very first mission that they’d all run together - a trio instead of a duo - where Wilde barely acknowledged him throughout the entirety of it, addressing almost all his observations and questions toward Feryn. Afterward, he’d insisted it was a mistake (and Zolf was inclined to believe him; Wilde could be a bit of a prick, but that was downright cruel), but still, it didn’t do anything to dissuade the persistent feeling that he was… unwelcome._

_But it was fine. He could deal with it._

_And deal with it, he did, for almost six months._

_Alas, he didn’t get a transfer to a new coordinator - the agency didn’t really get that many new recruits. No, he just settled in. It was around that point that he finally acknowledged that, no, this arrangement wasn’t going to be as temporary as he had been led to believe._

_(But it would end up being far more temporary than he ever feared, though he didn’t realize that at the time.)_

_He shouldn’t have let himself get comfortable. Maybe if he hadn’t, Feryn would still be alive._

_It had seemed like a normal mission, heading into it. A simple data retrieval and facility destruction; nothing they hadn’t done before. Still, Feryn seemed… off. Uneasy, almost. Zolf had tried to ask him about it, to figure out what was wrong, but Feryn just shrugged him off with a comment about it waiting until the mission was over._

_(If he’d just pushed the issue a bit more-)_

_So Zolf let it drop. It wasn’t like he had any other choice; he couldn’t make Feryn tell him if he didn’t want to, and if he didn’t think it was important enough to need to be addressed before the mission, who was Zolf to doubt him?_

_It didn’t get any better once the mission started. Feryn was tense, as close to jumpy as a person holding a gun could get before it started being dangerous. But he seemed focused, at least, so Zolf didn’t worry too much. He trusted Feryn, so if he said everything was fine, it was fine (even if Zolf didn’t entirely believe him). _

_They made it into the building without issue, only having to deal with a couple of guards, which was simple thanks to the advance warning from Wilde. The data retrieval was completed with ease, with Feryn standing guard while Zolf made sure they got all the information they needed (though it wasn’t as if there was anyone to really watch out for; the facility seemed nearly deserted)._

_Then the static started. It was alright at first, making it slightly more difficult to understand what Wilde was saying, but not unmanageably so. But it only got worse the closer they came to the area of the building where they needed to set the charges: the central generator. By the time they were within a hundred meters of it, the static had cut off their communications with Wilde entirely, without even the slightest evidence of Wilde speaking differentiable from the noise._

_(If he’d just convinced Feryn to turn back-)_

_It was still alright, they both figured; they knew what needed to be done, and how to do it. While it wasn’t ideal to be cut off from their coordinator, at least there were two of them, so they could watch each other’s backs._

_The generator was a huge, hulking thing, easily 30 feet in diameter and at least twice as tall. Zolf wasted no time beginning to set up the charges around the base and near the various weak points of the structure. At the very least it was simpler than it could have been; they just needed to damage it enough to compromise the integrity of the core, which would cause an explosion large enough to level the entire building._

_Simple._

_Easy._

_He should have known better._

_The thing was, the remote detonator that they’d been given to trigger the charges wasn’t going to work; whatever it was that was blocking their communications would have prevented the signal from reaching far enough to be of any use, probably not even out of the generator room. Even that on its own wouldn’t have been an issue - they could have found the signal jammer or rigged up something else to detonate the charges - but that wasn’t the only problem. No, because as Zolf finished setting up the charges, Feryn warned him they had guards incoming._

_A lot of guards._

_(If he’d just convinced Feryn to give up on the mission-)_

_They didn’t have enough time. That was all it came down to, in the end: a lack of time. If Zolf had just had a few more minutes, he could have figured out a way to get them out. But he didn’t._

_Feryn took the detonator from him, then. Told Zolf that he had an idea, Zolf just needed to get away from the building, out of the blast zone, and Feryn would find him later. And Zolf believed him. _

_(If he’d just questioned Feryn’s plan-)_

_So he did what Feryn asked. He got out of the building, far enough that he was sure he’d be safe from the explosion. Within seconds of him getting there, he heard his earpiece crackle, Feryn’s voice barely audible above the static, obviously only able to talk to him thanks to a jury-rigged signal booster, or something of the like._

_He’d never forget what Feryn said._

_“Zolf, I- it’s going to be okay. I promise, it’s going to be okay. I’m just going to-”_

_The signal was gone again before Feryn finished speaking. But it didn’t matter, Zolf was already running, because he recognized that for what it was: a reassurance, an apology, a goodbye. So Zolf ran, back toward the building, back into the blast radius._

_He was too slow._

_(If he’d just been faster-)_

_He kept running, even as the building exploded, sending debris flying through the air. He kept running, even as smoke started to fill the air around him, bringing with it an acrid smell that Zolf didn’t recognize. He kept running until, abruptly, he couldn’t, what remained of a support beam pinning him to the ground by his chest, another piece of flaming debris crushing his leg and it burned it burned it burned-_

_And everything went black._

* * *

“I woke up three days later in the medical wing. The doctors told me they hadn’t been able to save my leg, and… Wilde told me that Feryn was dead. Gone. Not- not even a body left, which I, uh,” he chuckled bitterly, “I guess makes sense, since there was barely anything left of the building itself.” Zolf could feel tears on his cheeks, though he didn’t know exactly when he’d started crying, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand.

Hamid looked on the verge of tears himself, his eyes bright, but his expression not one of pity, or judgement, or hate, or any of the other things he’d thought (feared) it would be. No, instead he just looked… sad. Just sad. He reached over, pulling Zolf forward into an almost crushingly tight hug, a gentle hand on the back of Zolf’s head as Zolf buried his face in Hamid’s shoulder. “I’m- I’m so sorry, Zolf. I know that doesn’t help, I just,” the arm around Zolf’s back squeezed even tighter, “I’m so sorry that happened.”

“You don’t need to- you shouldn’t be sorry,” Zolf said, muffled by the fabric of Hamid’s shirt. “It was my fault. I could have- I should have realized, I should have stopped it. I knew something was wrong, I should have-” 

“Zolf, hey, no,” He released Zolf from the hug, lightly pushing at his shoulders until Zolf leaned far enough back for Hamid to look him in the eye. “It wasn’t your fault. No, don’t you- don’t you even start. What happened there, Feryn dying, it wasn’t your fault.”

“But if I’d just stopped him, if I’d realized-”

“No. As hard as it is, Zolf, as much as you want to believe that you could’ve changed it somehow… What’s done is done. Feryn made his choice. He knew what he was doing, he knew what would happen, and he chose to save you.”

Zolf opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a broken sob as he leaned forward to bury his face in Hamid’s shoulder again, Hamid’s arms around him once more.

“As- as selfish as it sounds, I’m glad he did.” Hamid’s words were quiet, barely above a whisper, but Zolf heard them, nonetheless. “I’m- I’m glad you’re here. You’re my best friend, Zolf, and I’m so, so grateful that he saved you.” 

And, for the first time, so was Zolf.

* * *

When Zolf woke up the next morning, Hamid was still fast asleep, snoring lightly where he lay. That, in and of itself, wouldn’t have been surprising; Zolf had always been a lighter sleeper than Hamid, so it made sense that the quiet sounds of Cel moving around their lab would wake Zolf without disturbing Hamid’s rest. What was surprising, however, was the position he found Hamid asleep in. Namely, that he was in Zolf’s arms, head tucked into Zolf’s chest, their legs tangled together under the sheets.

That probably wouldn’t have even been that much of an issue for him as recently as a week ago, but now… Now it was, because he _knew_. He _knew _why his heartbeat stuttered when Hamid hugged him, why he felt his face heat up when Hamid complimented him, why he was helpless to do anything but return the expression whenever Hamid smiled at him. So this, this unconscious reaching out, it just felt like he was taking advantage, betraying the trust that Hamid placed in him when he’d said that he was comfortable sharing a bed with Zolf.

So, although the infatuated parts of him insisted that he could just stay, that he’d never get the chance to be close to Hamid like this again, that he shouldn’t give it up so hastily, he knew that he needed to move before Hamid woke up. He gently removed Hamid’s arm from where it lay across his waist, freezing for a moment when Hamid snuffled in his sleep, disturbed by the movement. Then, he slowly shifted Hamid’s head from where it lay on his chest to the pillow next to him. Just as he was about to slide out of bed, however, Cel burst into the room.

“Wake up, sleepyheads!” they cried, a slightly manic look in their eyes, the bags underneath making it clear that they hadn’t slept for very long. 

Next to Zolf, Hamid groaned, rubbing at his eyes with one hand as he levered himself up into a sitting position. “Good morning, Cel,” he said, voice rough with sleep. “What’s going on?”

“What do you think?” They pulled something out from behind their back - the prosthetic, Zolf realized abruptly - with a triumphant sound. “I’m finished! Now, I know it’s early, but I thought it would probably be best to try it out as soon as possible, so I know if I need to make any adjustments, especially since you said it took you two quite a while to get here, so we’ll probably want to leave pretty-”

“Wait,” Zolf tried to interject, but Cel continued on as if they hadn’t heard (which was entirely possible).

“-early if we want to make sure we make it back to your little hideaway before nightfall.”

They took a breath, obviously intending to continue talking, so Zolf cut in before they could. “What are you talking about?”

Cel looked confused, tilting their head slightly as they gestured to the prosthetic in their hand. “I don’t think I quite understand what you mean? I’m talking about your leg.”

“No, no, not that. I just mean- we?”

“Oh! Well, isn’t it obvious? I’m coming with you, of course!” they said, brightly. “Now hurry and get ready, Zolf! I’ll be in the lab when you’re done!” With that, they left, marching out of the room and down the hall, whistling a jaunty tune as they went. 

“So,” Hamid said, sounding significantly more awake, though not any less confused, “they’re coming with us.”

“Certainly seems like it.”

“Should we try to… stop them?”

Zolf shook his head fondly. “I don’t think we could, even if we tried. When they get their mind set on something, well…”

“Alright, then.”

It only took a few minutes for the two of them to get ready, and before long they were making their way to Cel’s lab, Zolf’s arm around Hamid’s shoulders, having left the walking stick he’d been using behind in the guest room. It wasn’t like he was going to need it for much longer, after all.

Cel was hurriedly gathering things up from the various shelves and tables around the room and shoving them into a duffle bag on the floor (even the breakable-looking vials of liquid, which was concerning, to say the least), but stopped once they noticed Zolf and Hamid enter the room. “Wonderful! Now, if you could just sit up here,” they said, gesturing to the large table in the centre of the room, “we can get started.”

Zolf and Hamid made their way up to the table, getting Zolf situated on it, while Cel grabbed the prosthetic off a nearby shelf and headed over. “Okay, so, I had to make sure this was compatible with the dock you already have, since I really didn’t want to have to start from scratch with the nerves and everything - I’m sure getting the nerves to interact with the dock properly the first time wasn’t exactly the most pleasant experience.” Zolf winced at the memory, nodding, though Cel didn’t look like they were paying attention, anyway. “Can I roll up your trouser leg a bit? Just to get the material out of the way.”

Zolf nodded again, feeling a rush of fondness as they paused to wait for his permission before continuing on.

“Alright, so this should be directly compatible with the dock, shouldn’t take more than a minute to sync up, and then you’ll be good to go!” With that, they finished attaching the new prosthetic, standing up and clapping their hands together once more.

Sure enough, only a few seconds later, Zolf felt the familiar jolt of not-quite-pain arcing through him as the prosthetic powered up. Hesitantly, Zolf tried to flex his foot, bracing for… something, though he wasn’t quite sure what. But nothing horrible happened; the prosthetic responded, the motion smoother than the original had ever managed, and completely silent to boot. He looked up at Cel, grinning. “Let’s test this out, then, shall we?”


	25. Bonus - Wilde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Usually, when a person first saw Feryn Smith and Oscar Wilde together, one of two assumptions were made:  
1) That they had been childhood friends, had grown up together, and just so happened to have been recruited together.  
2) That they were in a relationship, and had been for a very long time.  
Both of those assumptions were wrong, though they didn’t usually bother protesting the former (they vehemently denied the latter. That was just wrong).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter would technically have been posted after like, chapter 25 or so, but I was really happy with it so here we are.

Usually, when a person first saw Feryn Smith and Oscar Wilde together, one of two assumptions were made:

  1. That they had been childhood friends, had grown up together, and just so happened to have been recruited together.
  2. That they were in a relationship, and had been for a very long time.

Both of those assumptions were wrong, though they didn’t usually bother protesting the former (they vehemently denied the latter. That was just _wrong_).

In truth, they hadn’t met until the day they’d been assigned to work together, a little less than four years ago. They hadn’t even gotten along, in the beginning; Feryn constantly telling Wilde he was uptight, and Wilde retaliating with biting comments about Feryn’s skills (or lack thereof). But they figured each other out, eventually; it was the way most partnerships went.

_During their first mission, the only time they had stopped sniping at each other was when a guard had come very, very close to overhearing feryn’s snide comment from where he was crawling through the vent above him, and even the shaky ceasefire they’d established in those moments hadn’t lasted longer than a few minutes after they were clear._

That wasn’t to say they didn’t still argue, because they did, but the arguments had an undertone of affection to them (like an old married couple, Zolf had said once, to which both Feryn and Wilde had responded with various noises of disgust). Feryn still complained about Wilde being uptight, but he knew that same uptight-ness had saved his life more than once. Wilde still occasionally insulted Feryn’s skill as an agent, but only when he’d gone and done something stupid that still somehow worked, and always with an undercurrent of sarcasm that told Feryn (if no one else) that he didn’t actually mean it. 

_They knew each other well, by their 50th mission together. Well enough, in fact, that Wilde was able to interpret Feryn’s uncharacteristic silence during their preparations for exactly what it was: nervousness. Not for himself, Wilde knew; it had been a long time since Feryn had been nervous about one of his own missions. Feryn only got nervous where Zolf was involved, so it didn’t take Wilde long to figure out that Zolf’s first operation was scheduled to happen two days before theirs. He also knew Feryn well enough to know that hollow reassurances about Zolf’s skills wouldn’t do anything to calm him, so he called in a few favours (there were benefits to being charming, no matter how many sarcastic comments of Feryn’s implied otherwise) and got access to the camera feeds from Zolf’s coordinator. Maybe it was against protocol, but what Director Starling didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, it was worth it to see the look of pride on Feryn’s face as he watched Zolf work (though Wilde would never admit that. He didn’t need Feryn’s ego getting any bigger than it already was)._

Within a year of working together, they had become the kind of tight-knit partners that most teams in the agency wished they could be. They could read each other’s moods from the tone of their voice, could effectively bounce ideas off each other in fewer words than it took most people to say hello, and, somewhere along the way, they’d accidentally come up with verbal shorthand that they used frequently on missions.

_Feryn had his gun drawn as he made his way further into the seemingly abandoned building. He didn’t like it, not at all, Wilde could tell from the tightness of his tone (and Wilde wasn’t inclined to disagree; something about the building seemed… wrong). Suddenly, he spotted movement in the hall to Feryn’s left. All it took was a hissed, “Left, down,” and Feryn ducked sideways out of view of the hallway, just before a bullet cut through the space where his head had been._

Wilde thought back to that day, on occasion, trying to remember if Feryn had seemed alright, if there was something wrong that he could have, _should_ have, noticed. But there wasn’t. He knew there wasn’t. Feryn hadn’t known what would happen any more than Wilde or Zolf did, so there was nothing for Wilde to have seen. Nothing that would have changed what happened.

_He’d been tense, as he, Wilde, and Zolf were prepping for the operation. But that wasn’t unusual, not since Zolf had started joining them; he was always tense when Zolf was involved (Wilde didn’t think Zolf noticed), so he discounted it. Sometimes, he thinks that he shouldn’t have, that Feryn must have had some sort of gut feeling that things were going to go so horribly wrong, and if he’d just paid attention... That was ridiculous, though. He couldn’t have. None of them could. _

No amount of obsessing over the past would bring Feryn back. No matter how desperately he wanted it to.

_The sounds of static and distant explosions still haunted his dreams._

And look, Wilde knew that coordinators always had to be prepared to lose their agents, whether that be for the mission, or to an accident, or some other unforeseen complication. But that didn’t mean that it had to be easy; you couldn’t expect two people to work together for an extended period of time without growing to care for one another (the agency had a veritable army grief counsellors on staff for a reason).

_Wilde had declined counselling, in the end. He didn’t think he needed it, didn’t think he needed someone else to tell him it was okay that Feryn’s loss hurt him so deeply he felt like his heart had been torn out of his chest. He _knew _it was okay to feel that way, so having someone else reiterate it would only feel like an insult to his intelligence, and a waste of their valuable time. He could work through it on his own, thank you very much._

Wilde had thought he was prepared for the prospect of Feryn dying; he’d considered it enough, thinking about how and why and what would happen after, staring up at his ceiling in the middle of the night. Hell, even Feryn had been prepared for the prospect of his death, prepared enough that he’d given Wilde a letter for Zolf, ‘just in case’.

_Wilde didn’t give Zolf the letter right away. He’d intended to, initially. He’d meant to give it to him the moment that he’d woken up in the medical wing. But then he’d asked about Feryn, and Wilde had to explain, and Zolf had just looked so… broken, voice hoarse as he shouted at Wilde, telling him it was his fault (as if he didn’t already think that), all his anger at the unfair world taking his brother away pouring out into the words he threw in Wilde's face. So Wilde didn’t. At the time, he hadn’t been sure if Zolf could handle it, that last message from Feryn, or if it would have broken him irreparably, vulnerable as he was. Later, Wilde was glad he hadn’t; not because he still believed it would have broken him, but because he worried that, in his anger, Zolf might have done something he regretted. That letter was the only thing left of Feryn besides memory, now, and even though it wasn’t _for _him, he didn’t want to see it destroyed._

It hadn’t even occurred to Wilde that he wouldn’t just go back to his job once he was done mourning (no, not done mourning, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be _done mourning_, not so long as his best friend was dead. Ready, perhaps, was a better word. Once he was ready). He just thought that, since Zolf was still around… they’d just resume, eventually. Once they were both ready to do that. It should have occurred to him, probably, that Zolf wouldn’t want to work with him again. That Zolf wouldn’t even want to work in the _field _again. But it hadn’t, so it had been a bit of a surprise, the day Zolf had come to him to say that he’d requested a transfer, and that it had been granted.

_Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’d wonder. He’d wonder if maybe, just maybe, Feryn wasn’t dead. If he hadn’t just run, cut ties with the agency in the only way it was possible to, and gone somewhere far, far away. If he wasn’t just sipping a cup of tea in a cottage in the wilderness somewhere, while Wilde continued on, none the wiser. He dismissed the notion almost immediately, though. Wilde wasn’t selfish enough to believe that Feryn would never do that to him; they were friends, sure. Best friends, even. But still. No, the reason he knew Feryn was dead, _really _dead, was Zolf. Feryn loved his brother, more than anything. He would never leave Zolf behind like that. Never._

Even after Zolf had told him about _his_ transfer, Wilde had never even considered requesting one of his own. He was a coordinator, had been for as long as he’d worked for the agency. What else was he going to do? But after one too many missions where Wilde lost his head (a moment of static on the line sent Wilde into a spiral. The very prospect of explosives triggered a panic attack, the distant sounds of months finished explosions echoing in his ears), he didn’t so much as _request_ a transfer as… get given one. For his own good, Director Starling had said, and Wilde was inclined to agree (he already had Feryn’s blood on his hands. He didn’t need anyone else’s).

_Starling insisted that the transfer was just temporary, that he’d only be working in administration for as long as it took him to ‘fully recover from his ordeal’, but Wilde knew that wasn’t true. He was a liability, now, someone they could no longer trust with the lives of their field agents. But that was okay; administration was mindless, calming. At least, when the worst thing he had to deal with was misfiled paperwork, there was no chance he’d accidentally get someone killed. Sure, he and Feryn used to joke about administration being the worst possible job in a building full of ‘goddamn secret agents’ (“they’re _secret agents_, Wilde,” he’d said, “doesn’t the whole administration thing kind of… undermine the whole idea of everything we do being _secret_?”), but it was fine (it wasn’t like Feryn was there to make fun of him for it anyway)._

It hurt a bit, that Zolf never came to see him again after telling him about his transfer, but it was fine. He understood; Zolf probably still blamed him (at least a little) for Feryn’s death. That was okay, Wilde blamed himself too.

_And if, sometimes, Wilde looked up from a particularly boring piece of paperwork, a quip already on his tongue that only Feryn would have understood, well, that was okay too. At least that meant he remembered him. He owed Feryn that much._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be happy. I promised myself one happy bonus chapter, _just one_, but then I had an idea, and it spiralled into just… so much sadness.


	26. Bonus - Audio Log #371

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WELCOME USER: VANGUARD

CELQUILLITHON SIDEBOTTOM -- AUDIO LOG #371 

<WARNING**:** DATA CORRUPTION, ONLY PARTIAL RECOVERY POSSIBLE>

<CONTINUE? (Y/N)>

**Y**

<PROCESSING…>

<PROCESSING…>

<DATA RECOVERY COMPLETE>

<PLAY RECORDING? (Y/N)>

**Y**

<PROCESSING…>

<PROCESSING…>

_Celquillithon: _-and I mean, it really makes no sense for it to behave like this. Why would it take this much energy to boil when by all rights it _should_ boil at room temperature? I suppose it _could_ be due to- Oh! There we go, there’s something, let me just- there! A bubble! Finally, feels like I’ve been waiting ages, which, oh, I guess it’s been almost five hours! That explains why my feet hurt so much, I suppose. Now just to wait until it starts boiling properly-

<SKIPPING...>

_Celquillithon: _-you lose the last one, anyway?

<REWINDING…>

_Celquillithon: _-rry for making you wait, I’d just been doing this experiment for a while, y’know? I’ve been trying to analyze the behavioural properties of this solution for a long time, and it hasn’t really been working out. Apparently, it doesn’t boil until about 200 degrees celsius, which I didn’t realize, and doesn’t really make much sense when you consider its chemical properties, especially its theoretically low intermolecular forces and… and… oh…

_Unknown: _ Yea- Y- Y- Y- here.

<WARNING**:** AUDIO DATA CORRUPTED>

<SKIP TO NEXT UNCORRUPTED AUDIO? (Y/N)>

**Y**

<SKIPPING…>

_Celquillithon: _Oh, wonderful! I mean, not wonderful that you need a new one, of course not, but that I get to make the next one. It’ll be so _fun_. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to do a- a passion project! How d'you lose the last one, anyway?

_Unknown: _ (distorted) It’s, uh, a long story.

<PAUSED>

<ISOLATING AUDIO FROM UNKNOWN SOURCE…>

<ISOLATING…>

<IDENTIFYING UNKNOWN SOURCE…>

<IDENTIFYING…>

<ERROR: UNABLE TO IDENTIFY UNKNOWN SOURCE>

<SKIPPING…>

_Celquillithon: _-ite interesting poisons here in the shop, ones that do all kinds of interesting things! I’ve got one where, at low doses, all it does is make your hair fall ou-

<SKIPPING…>

_Celquillithon:_ -can’t convince you to add anything more, I dunno, interesting? I mean, what you’ve asked me to add already is great and all, but we could really have some fun with this!

_Unknown:_ (distorted) No poison darts, Cel.

_Celquillithon: _(sigh) Fine. You’re no fun.

<REWINDING…>

_Unknown:_ (distorted) No poison darts, Cel.

<PAUSED>

<ISOLATING AUDIO FROM UNKNOWN SOURCE…>

<ISOLATING…>

<IDENTIFYING UNKNOWN SOURCE…>

<IDENTIFYING…>

<ERROR: UNABLE TO IDENTIFY UNKNOWN SOURCE>

<SKIPPING…>

_Celquillithon:_ -idn’t really get to talk about it last time, but I really am sorry. About Feryn.

<PAUSED>

<WHAT IS YOUR QUERY?>

**Personnel, Feryn**

<1 RESULT FOUND>

AGENT #71224, FERYN SMITH

**View file**

<FETCHING…>

<ERROR: ACCESS DENIED>

<REASON: INSUFFICIENT ADMINISTRATIVE PERMISSIONS>

<ENTER ACCESS OVERRIDE CODE>

**VSF2619GLX**

<ERROR: ACCESS DENIED>

<ERROR: ACCESS DENIED>

<ERROR: ACCESS DENIED>

_Celquillithon:_ -idn’t really get to talk about it last time, but I really am sorry. About Feryn.

<REWINDING…>

_Celquillithon:_ About Feryn.

<REWINDING…>

_Celquillithon:_ About Feryn.

_Unknown:_ (distorted) Thanks, Cel. I… I am too.

<PAUSED>

<ISOLATING AUDIO FROM UNKNOWN SOURCE…>

<ISOLATING…>

<IDENTIFYING UNKNOWN SOURCE…>

<IDENTIFYING…>

<ERROR: UNABLE TO IDENTIFY UNKNOWN SOURCE>

<SKIPPING...>

_Celiquillithon:_ -eady to go in just a minute, just have to take care of something first- first- first.

<ERROR:-.SN!XPJ??>

<ERROR>

<ERROR>

<ERROR: INCOMING MESSAGE>

<OPEN? (Y/N)>

**Y**

<IT’S A GOOD THING YOU SAID YES. THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED EITHER WAY, BUT AT LEAST YOU’RE BEING COOPERATIVE. DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT IT WOULD BE THAT EASY? DID YOU REALLY THINK I WOULDN’T NOTICE YOU TRYING TO WORM YOUR WAY INTO MY SYSTEMS? YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER. I DO HOPE YOU LEARN FROM THIS. IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, REALLY.> 

<ERROR>

<ERROR>

<ERROR: VIRUS DETECTED>

<ERROR: CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM MALFUNCTION>

<ERROR: SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT>

<ERROR: GOODBYE, VANGUARD. -- CEL>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: it took me way too long to come up with that override code because early on I decided that the entire thing had to have some meaning or other. If you think you know what it means, feel free to tell me here or on tumblr at disasternureyev :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at redactedquill


End file.
